


A Snow and A Stag

by sunryder



Series: Lady Joanna [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Drunk Robert, F/M, Female Jon Snow, Genderswap, Robert Baratheon is Gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-11 05:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15965417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: “I'm going to be one of my brother’s knights.” Joanna declared.“No, you’re not.” Lord Baratheon looked at her like she was an idiot.“You think I can’t do it?”“You won’t live through your first battle.”“Because I’m a lady?” Joanna spat with well-worn irritation.“Because you’re fighting like you’re the same size as your opponent. If young Stark wasn’t pulling his strikes you’d have lost.”And so began the strangest friendship known to the Seven Kingdoms





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning to those of you who've read my LOTR fics, I am far less familiar with Martin's world than Tolkien's. While for LOTR I have footnotes and cross-references to the wiki, that doesn't happen here. Frankly, I barely even have a timeline. 
> 
> This is all for fun, and idea I couldn't get out of my head until it went down on paper. It's complete, so expect updates with regularity.

Stannis Baratheon did not indulge in histrionics. He gave no credence to gossip, no praise to the Seven, and counted whispers about savage Northmen and depraved Dornish as hyperbolic. However, faced with the stone-dour visage of Eddard Stark and the man’s hand twitching towards his sword, it was not the comfort of logic that invaded Stannis’ mind. Instead, he could hear Selyse’s nonsensical complaints that it was the Wolf’s influence that had ruined Robert and it would have been better if Stark had turned into a creature and torn apart Robert’s flesh rather than teach him such animalistic habits.

Even in death, Selyse managed to infuriate him. It was in his anger – at her for ever being so foolish, and himself for still allowing her venom to infect him all these years later – that Stannis demanded, “What in the gods’ name did Robert do?”

Stark froze in genuine surprise. “You don’t know?”

“Robert hasn’t spoken a word about it. If your people hadn’t started shunning trade with Casterly Rock and Storm’s End then we wouldn’t have the slightest idea he’d insulted you.”

The battle-ready tension sloughed from Stark’s shoulders and he dropped into one of the solar’s comfortable chairs situated before the fire. “I apologize for that. I have done my best to keep the matter quiet, but there is no controlling gossip or reactions to it. Your peoples did not deserve to be punished for Robert’s mistake.”

“You’ve done better at corralling the gossip than you believe. All that the best intelligence can determine is that on his last journey North, Robert was thrown out of Winterfell – literally out on his ass according to the most common version of the tale. However, there are no stories about what foul thing it was that Robert did to deserve such an ejection from your home. I assume your people don’t know the specifics or the details would have made it south, either through regular means or through Varys’ spies. As it is, those who know the truth have said nothing, under no circumstances. Robert hasn’t said a word to the mistresses Varys has paid to fuck the truth of him, Renly has gotten him drunk at least a dozen times and learned nothing, and despite Lord Arryn’s requests, Lady Arryn refuses to ask your wife. The whole matter has made Ser Barristan even more pinch-lipped than is his wont, and the other two Kingsguard who rode North with Robert refuse to even hint. We know nothing of the matter Lord Stark, other than it must have occurred. And even if I was unaware of the severity of Robert’s infraction, every glower that has been turned my direction all the way from the port at White Harbor to the very halls of Winterfell would inform me otherwise. So I ask again, Lord Stark, what did Robert do?”

Stark slouched into his chair, as though he was burdened under the weight of having to speak the words aloud. It was likely he’d had the foolish hope that the South would never come calling and he might go on pretending Robert’s offense had never occurred. “Although you have never been anything less than honorable, Lord Stannis, in truth I trust you with this because I remember how you were when the Lady Shireen fell ill. Out of anyone, I trust that you would know what a father would do for his daughter.”

Stannis steeled himself with a slow, hissed breath through his teeth. “Tell me quick, Lord Stark, and be done with it. Did Robert force himself on one of your girls?”

Stark looked pain at hearing the possibility spoke aloud. “He tried. If he’d gone after my Sansa, he would’ve succeeded. As it is, he chose my Joanna, who has trained beside Robb her entire life. She saved herself from anything beyond bruises and the terror of having _that_ be the first time a man dared touch her.”

Stannis sank weak-kneed into the chair across from Stark. “Robert wasn’t injured when he came home or we would’ve made assumptions about what happened. You have my word if we’d had any idea at least some of us would’ve been here to make amends long before.”

“He was too drunk to walk a straight line when he set upon her. Jo tried to be polite to the king, and when he went for her skirts she hit him hard and low. He might’ve managed more, but Robb heard her screaming. If Robb hadn’t found Robert on his back weeping and tending to his balls, Robb would have joined the ranks of Kingslayers. As it is, Joanna has gone nowhere without a knife ever since.”

“Was he so drunk he mistook her for a maid? What possessed him to touch one of your daughters?”

Stark thunked his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. “Joanna is the mirror image of Lyanna. She said that Robert kept calling her by her aunt’s name, all but sobbing out his gratitude that she had come back to him unharmed.”

Stannis swallowed back his nausea. “I imagine that’s the only reason you didn’t stab him yourself.”

“It is something that he wasn’t trying to rape my daughter, he was trying to bed his love. Not much, but enough to spare his life when all our years of friendship wouldn’t have been enough to protect him.”

“As they shouldn’t be.” Stannis straightened in his chair and forced aside his horror to do his duty. “I can offer you no recompense for Robert’s actions since the king cannot admit to this publicly.”

Were Stark a different man, this would be the moment he would reach for a drink. “I didn’t imagine you could. Recompense for the damage he _didn’t_ do to my bastard daughter? My Bannermen are breaking ties with the kingdoms below the Neck more because they look for any excuse to annoy the South than because they feel the offense done to my child.”

“I take it they do not know the specifics of what happened?”

“I’ve told none and no one has asked me to explain. They know that I threw Robert out, and I can’t imagine what gossip might have told them.”

Stark was likely too devoted a father to even acknowledge that a considerable portion of those Bannerman probably thought that the bastard girl had likely climbed into the King’s bed and cried rape when she got caught. Willing or unwilling, Stannis understood all too well what must have happened to the girl’s marriage prospects since. Those Lords who might have had her to wed simply because Lord Stark loved her as much as his trueborn girls or because Robb Stark called her his twin would not forgive her the taint of Robert’s touch. Whether or not Robert had even bruised the girl, he had ruined her life either way.

“I can do nothing bindin, because that would require Robert to admit to all and sundry what he has done. But if it is in my power I will see something done.”

Stark finally raised his head and blinked his eyes back open. “I confess myself surprised that you’re willing to do anything at all.”

“If Benjen had put a hand to my Shireen, I would not have let him leave my house alive. You showed restraint that I would have not.”

“Not even I could justify killing a man who looked quite so pathetic. All I ask is that you be sure Robert understands that if he comes North he’ll get what he’ll get from my people, but he’ll never again find love in my halls.”

Stannis gave a sharp nod. That would be an easy warning to give, and with Lord Arryn’s help, simple to enforce. “And your daughter?”

“Joanna?” Stark stiffened. “What about her?”

“Is there some recompense she might request that I might be able to offer?”

Stark admitted that Lady Joanna had expressed no such desire to him, but she was a quiet child and just as like to have no desire at all as she was to yearn and never mention. While Stannis knew the value of keeping impossible desires to himself, in this he might be able to offer the girl some small measure of comfort. Rather than summon the girl, Stark knew precisely where she would be at this time of day and led them both to the walkway above the training yards. Stark paused at the rail to look down on what Stannis assumed must be a common sight in Winterfell: a spar between the young lord and lady, the Lord’s eldest children surrounded by a circle of household guards shouting advice.

It only took the exchange of a few blows for Stannis to decide that Joanna Snow was better with a sword than he had presumed. She still had that practiced smoothness to her motions as every apprentice until they’d survived a fight for their lives, but she was competent enough that if she’d been a boy Stannis wouldn’t have refused her training. While every person could learn to defend their life, there were fewer folk who had true talent with a blade than became knights. Though he was unsettled by the wrongness of a Lord’s daughter with a blade in her hand, Stannis kept in mind the talent of Lady Brienne and held his tongue on any counsel he might’ve given Stark on allowing his daughter such training. After all, it was not as though Joanna Snow had many options left to her after Robert’s shame, and if she had no compunction about wounding a king, she might have the will to endure a knighthood.

“Lord Baratheon.” Lady Stark appeared beside them, red hair tumbling beside her shoulders in the way any fine lady would only do in the comfort of her own home. Behind her shoulders were some Northern Lady Stannis did not recognize at sight and young Lady Sansa. Lady Stark glanced at her husband, and whatever she saw on his face was enough for her to don a pleasant smile. “Welcome to Winterfell, my Lord. I apologize for not greeting you sooner.” All three ladies curtsied in time.

Of course, she had not greeted him. If the man had any sense, Stark would want his entire family away from any Baratheon until he was certain they would not be repeating Robert’s mistakes.

There was a long moment of silence that Stannis found preferable to the idle pretension that Lady Stark had not been waiting to see if politeness was necessary or if another man was going to be thrown out of the house. However, Lady Stark had that expression that Stannis was all too familiar with on Ladies’ faces, one that meant a woman wished he would do his part to carry on the conversation. Thankfully he was spared ruining any attempt at pleasantries by the young lord heir calling up to his father.

Lord Stark ushered Stannis down the stairs before him and into a yard that had gone silent when the men recognized their guest. These men at least believed Miss Joanna’s version of events. Or perhaps they were disposed to glower at any Baratheon, with or without cause. The young lord put himself between Stannis and his sister, and didn’t extend his hand after Lord Stark introduced Lord Baratheon.

“Robb,” Lady Stark scolded at her stubborn son, while Miss Joanna bumped her brother as she stepped forward to shoulder his burden.

Stannis twisted her wrist and brought her hand as near to his mouth as he could manage without more than a tilt of his own head or too harsh a tug on the girl’s arm, so much closer to the ground as she was. “Lady Joanna.”

“Lord Baratheon. I would say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I imagine you’re not here for anything pleasant.” Stannis’ eyebrow went up. Joanna did not flinch at his surprise, nor did she smirk. “There’s no point in pretending otherwise when they all know what happened.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t attempt to keep the details to your family.”

“Why would I? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“And yet you’ll bear the burden of it.”

“Isn’t that women’s lot in life?”

“Joanna!” Lady Stark hissed. “I apologize Lord Baratheon.”

“Why? She’s not wrong. Though I would argue that the burden bearers tend more to be those with sense than simply women.”

“And women happen to more often be the ones with sense?” Joanna interjected.

“Sense depends entirely on the person. I have known as many ridiculous women as men, however, the ridiculous men often tend to be more praised for it. However, it is difficult to argue about your level of sense when you’re in a yard.”

“I'm going to be one of my brother’s knights.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You think I can’t do it?”

“You won’t live through your first battle.”

“Because I’m a lady?” Joanna spat with well-worn irritation.

“Because you’re fighting like you’re the same size as your opponent. If young Stark wasn’t pulling his strikes you’d have lost.”

Joanna paused at the unexpected reply. “He’s not pulling his strikes.”

“Yes, he is. I imagine they all are.”

Lady Joanna looked at the master-at-arms as though she was expecting him to object, but the massive man blushed and looked away.

Abandoned as she had been, the girl turned to her brother for support. “Robb isn’t holding back.” The poor boy nodded along like he really believed it.

“Of course he is. You’re his sibling and he likes you.”

“And if he didn’t like me?”

“I can’t image Lord Stark would raise a son who would hit a woman under any circumstance. Nevertheless, you’re half the size of anyone here but you’re fighting without that in mind. That disregard will get you killed. If you are devoted to this terrible idea you should at least be competent at it.”

“I am!”

“At sparring with an opponent who’s too afraid of your father to hurt you, yes you are. Knighthood isn’t the same thing.”

Joanna drew her sword and took on a fighting stance that she had no doubt learned from her father. “Show me.”

“Joanna!” Lady Stark snapped. Her husband seemed at ease with standing in silence and allowing Stannis to be the one to tell his daughter the nasty truth of her efforts. It would have been better either for him to have told her the truth ages ago, or for Lady Stark to simply let her go on as she was – the dainty redhead still up on the walkway could only come out ahead in comparison to the wolf girl.

However, Stannis ignored the interests of both. “I am _also_ twice your size. I cannot teach you the kind of fighting you’ll need to survive if you intend to continue this folly.”

“I don’t need you to teach me to fight, I need you to show me what it’s like to get hit when someone’s not holding back.”

“Jo—” Robb tried to interrupt.

“No! How will I know that you’re all pulling your hits if I’ve never experienced the difference?”

“We’re not _all_ pulling them!”

“Ser Rodrik wouldn’t answer me, which means _yes,_ you are. And I’ve had no idea any of you were doing it.”

Lady Joanna turned back to Stannis and stepped into his space, ignoring the hissed comments from her stepmother that were surely about being too bold. “ _Please_.” The word sounded as though it had been dragged from her with tongs. Female though she was, Stannis understood too well the humiliation that came from a sibling who considered you incompetent. Young Stark did it out of love, but the end result was the same. Stannis undid the clasp on his cloak, casting the most perfunctory of looks at her father to be certain of anything less than Stark’s outright disapproval before Stannis pointed a weapon in the girl’s direction. Though based on the shifting among the men, Stark wouldn’t even need to flinch before Stannis was set upon by a whole yard full of men who still felt as though they had failed their Lord’s daughter.

Stannis handed his cloak over to one of the young men who looked least likely to drop it out of petulance, while Miss Joanna stood there in several long moments of disbelief. She shook herself and assumed what would have been a decent fighting stance were she a foot taller and several stone heavier. Stannis, however, took his place before her without drawing his sword.

The girl was too polite to attack him despite the vulnerability he had given her. “Aren’t you going to draw your sword?”

“I will when you take a stance that is actually going to protect you.”

“This _is_ my stance.”

“You’re going to lose your weapon that way. You’re too tight.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to lose my sword.”

“Perhaps not on the first hit exchanged with someone closer to your size, but if you try and take a hit from me, it does.”

“I can keep my grip on my sword.” Some of the knights snorted at the innuendo she laced into the words. A Baratheon ought to say that she had never encountered a sword as big as his, but Lady Stark already looked a heartbeat away from storming away from where her husband had bundled her off to the side and ending the entire matter before they could get properly started.

Stannis, said nothing, only raised an eyebrow.

With all the impatience of the young, Joanna took him at his word and darted forward. Stannis was not the sort of man who chose fanciful scabbards or armor that could scatter jewels amongst the drops of his blood, and at this moment he was grateful for his restraint. Otherwise, he might have hesitated in concern for the fineness of his things when he didn’t bother stepping out of the way of her double-handed swing. He blocked the blow with a short stroke and brought the motion back around to slice her clean through. Armed with his scabbard, the blow did no more then send her reeling back a step. She didn’t lose the sword entirely – as she would have if he had put real force into it – but she lost one hand and the sword’s point buried in the dirt as she stumbled.

Every man in the yard shifted like he was a beat away from darting forward to save her from Stannis. The young Stark actually did take several steps before Joanna forced herself back to her feet and waived him off. Stannis cast aside his scabbard because she had learned the lesson and was already shifting her stance to properly defend herself when Stannis came for her rather than thinking she might be able to overpower him. At least, thinking that she might be able to overpower him immediately, anyway. He let her get in a few strikes before he forced the blade into the dirt again, another time to the side just like the first, and another into the air before he kicked her in the stomach. She stumbled back without crashing down because it was more a nudge than anything, but it was enough to make Robb run forward to pick her up off the dirt and the rest of them reach for their swords.

She brushed off her brother. “I’m fine, Robb.”

“Jo—”

“I’m fine!” This whole affair must be mortifying for the girl. Young Robb deserved to be beaten upside the head for such deception, and in her bright red cheeks and misty eyes, Stannis could see the temptation to shun the rest of the guards for lying to her all these years.

Instead, the girl stuck out her chin, blinked away her tears before they compromised her vision, and swore to her brother that she was fine before she turned back to Stannis. “Do you have any advice for me?”

Unexpectedly, he was not tempted to tell her to cease such nonsense and go back to being a proper lady. She was talented, and she had the sense to learn from each time Stannis put her down. If the men in the yard started fighting with her in earnest she had enough of a brain to learn from her mistakes, even without someone competent to teach her. Both he and her father were far too large to be the ones for regular instruction, but in the next few minutes, Stannis could attempt to teach her the fundamentals.

He raised his sword in signal that he was ready to resume. “I have a longer reach and more muscle, what do you have?”

“A temper.” The girl charged him, and for that nonsense, he knocked her down fast and hard.

“Anger will get you killed even quicker than prideful sword work. Get up.” He didn’t move to help her climb back up from the dirt, and he didn’t need to look to know Lord Stark had a hand on his son to keep him from storming over. “I ask again. What do you have?”

The girl swallowed back her embarrassed fury and the urge to simply lash out. That control was a feat few swordsmen ever managed. If she could learn to keep _thinking_ instead of blindly strike, then she would survive. The mind was more dangerous than any muscle.

“I’m small.”

“And smaller people are what?”

“Smaller!” Joanna spat. Stannis was disappointed and went to put his sword away. “Faster. I’m faster!”

“Then be faster.” Stannis took a slow, stupid swing at her and the girl leapt back. “If me hitting you square means you’re going to lose your sword, get out of the way so my hit isn’t square.” He came at her directly, and rather than swinging her sword up to block, she side-stepped. Stannis changed direction and tapped her with the flat of his sword. “My reach is longer. So don’t be where I’m aiming.” He swung again and this time she side-stepped and ducked, still moving as she blocked his blows rather than planting her feet and catching every strike with nothing but the strength of her arms. He still could have killed her in a battle, but at least now she might make him sweat first.

He ended the fight before too many strikes were shared. “See what you can do when you’re not raging?” She smiled and though she raised her sword to go again, Stannis sheathed his. “Your father will need another sword master. This one is too large to teach you any kind of technique, though I doubt that he could get over his aversion to striking his Lord’s daughter, even if was smaller. Though he would be good for you to spar against if he ever feels brave enough to hit your properly.”

“I can’t just make Robb hate me?”

“Considering your brother hasn’t taken his hand off his sword since I arrived, it seems unlikely.”

“But you’ll teach me what you can before you go.”

Stannis didn’t ask if she’d be comfortable with that, her almost-rapist’s brother with a sword to her throat and heaving her body around the training yard. She spat fire and pride, but it would be a pity to waste her mind. “If you’re willing to learn it.”

He gave a polite nod to her and took back his cloak before he returned to Lord and Lady Stark, letting himself be subjected to the woman’s pinch-lipped smile as she directed him towards his chambers. Behind him, Stannis could hear the young heir asking his sister once again if she was well.

“I’m better than I’ve been in a long time. Now come on, let’s go again. And this time don’t hold back.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joanna couldn’t decide if she was irritated with Lord Stannis for avoiding the family dinner because it meant Lady Stark was able to scold her with all her siblings there to watch, or if she was grateful to the man for clearing out so that the scolding could be over and done with. Generally, Lady Stark liked to reprimand Joanna in the privacy of her father’s solar, but when she did it in front of witnesses she wanted the mortifying lesson to stick.

“She cannot keep doing this, Ned! You have let it go on this long because she reminds you of your sister and your Bannerman have permitted it with little comment because such wildness can only be expected of a bastard, but now it is reflecting poorly on our children.”

“I think she did a _good_ job fighting Lord Stannis!” Arya objected, not realizing that she was quite proving Lady Stark’s point. Joanna gave Arya a grateful smile, while Lady Stark gave her husband a look.

Father had long ago proven that he’d rather not have these sorts of conversations in front of any of his children, let alone the daughter that the conversation revolved around. He ignored Lady Stark’s glower and agreed with Arya that Joanna had done exceedingly well. “What did you think of his advice, Jo? Should I be looking for a short swordsman to teach you?”

“No, father!” Robb objected. “We’re doing just fine as we are.”

“I quite agree. But as Lord Stannis pointed out: just fine won’t be good enough if Joanna intends to pursue this course. I apologize, Jo, for not keeping a better eye on your training.”

“It’s all right, father. And it’s all right, Robb.” She reached over and patted the hand he had clutching his fork. “I don’t blame you for being a good brother ahead of a good sparring companion. But you going so easy wasn’t doing either one of us a service.”

“I promise you, Jo, I truly thought I was doing my best by you.”

“Lord Stannis says that’s because you’re an excellent older brother,” Sansa pointed out. Lord Stannis was neither young nor handsome, but Sansa did not need romance to respect the value of the brother of a king.

“That you most certainly are, Robb. I don’t even blame Ser Rodrik. It can’t be easy teaching your Lord’s daughter to fight, and I imagine he spent quite a bit of time believing I didn’t really mean it when I said I wanted to learn.”

“Because no one does believe it! Bastard or not, you are a Lord’s daughter and everyone believes that soon enough you will come to your senses and begin looking for a husband, as you ought to do, and as we all expect you to.” Lady Stark interrupted.

“I’m going to be one of Robb’s knights.” Joanna did not yell. She was a grown woman, and grown women did not get into shouting matches over the dinner table with their step-mothers over matters that were settled and done. Lady Stark had long ago disavowed any role in the raising of Joanna Snow, and her father had declared that if she wanted to learn the blade, she could. There would be no stepping in from Lady Stark to stop it now.

“And how do you think Robb’s wife will feel about that? Or do you intend to damage your brother’s marital prospects as severely as you have damaged your own?”

“I did nothing wrong!”

Lady Stark paused. When she spoke again it was with far more gentleness. “No, no you did not. King Robert’s attentions were inappropriate and you did nothing to encourage him. You behaved throughout the entire situation with the kind of grace and poise that any man would want in his wife. It was after, when you abandoned any pretense of ladylike behavior and ignored all intentions expressed towards you that you damaged your reputation. The King did not ruin your reputation, Joanna, you did that to yourself.”

“They didn’t want to _marry me_ , Lady Stark. They all thought I’d been sullied by the King and was now ripe for the picking.”

“No one would treat Lord Stark’s daughter that way.” She scoffed.

“But to them I wasn’t Lord Stark’s daughter anymore. Do you think I don’t have ears, Lady Stark? Do you think I couldn’t hear men calling me the King’s whore? Do you think I didn’t hear the women saying it had only been a matter of time because like mother like daughter? Do you think I didn’t notice that fine young men who used to smile at me when they came to Winterfell now wouldn’t look my way, while their knights tried to touch me in the sparring yard and pass it off as practice?”

Her poor father had gone pale as milk. He hadn’t heard a word of any of this, kept from the terrible truth by his children who thought it would do him no good. Darling Robb couldn’t look up from his plate, feeling like the worst kind of failure. He had done all he could to stop the abuse, but few men were stupid enough to say such things in front of her twin. And now he knew that despite all their years of practice, he hadn’t been doing as much as he’d hoped to help her defend herself.

“I’m certain that not all of your father’s Bannerman have permitted such behavior.”

“You are right,” Joanna conceded. “Whether their men are better stock, or those Lords had the decency or the sense to put an end to it before it began, there are Houses I have had no trouble with when they come to visit.”

“And what is wrong with one of their sons?”

“To not harass me in the halls and to defend my honor are two very different things, Lady Stark. I do not consider that refraining from the one is a justification for failing to do the latter. I have no desire to marry a man who still in the back of his mind thinks me a liar or a whore. I will be respected in my marriage bed. You taught me the value of that.”

Joanna said it with no disdain, and no tone of judgment on the Lady’s marriage for Joanna meant it truly. She didn’t know the entirety of what her father had done to make things right with Lady Stark, or if even now for all the love between them things still were not as right as they could be, but Lady Stark had demanded and received her recompense for the slight of a bastard child sharing a nursery with her own trueborn son.

“So,” Lord Stark’s voice cracked, “if Harrion Karstark were to come to you and apologize for the foolishness of youth before he made you an offer?”

Joanna froze in shock, alongside the rest of the table. The only sound was little Rickon still working on his meal, oblivious to the argument around him. Joanna had no idea her father had been negotiating a marriage for her, let alone to a firstborn son of one of the better houses. But still. “I would remember that for all his apologies, first he stood there and allowed Ramsey Snow to call me a bitch in heat.”

Robb’s fork clattered to the table. “He what?”

“Ramsay Snow has always been disgusting,” Sansa said without inflection. While the Bolton bastard had never said so much as a single word to Sansa, every woman in the family was uncomfortable with the way his eyes would follow her, and their men trusted their opinion on the matter.

“So no matter what they have learned or sincere their apologies, you will never be able to forgive a Northman?”

“It’s not a matter of forgiveness, Father. It’s a matter of making a life with a man who could ever think so poorly of me.”

“Enough, Ned,” Lady Stark interrupted. Joanna knew she sounded pathetic, begging her father to forgo ever placing a marriage offer before her, because while she would marry if her father asked, she would never bring herself to give a child to man who had such disrespect for her as she had endured in the years since King Robert had touched her. Despite occasional bouts of being subjected to it, Joanna was never sure if Lady Stark’s compassion was better or worse than being shunned. There was a time when Joanna would have taken Harrion Karstark as husband happily, but now she had spilled all her failed hopes in regard to him and any other all over the dinner table. Lady Stark met her confession not with scorn for thinking that as a bastard she deserved any such consideration from a husband she should count herself lucky to have, but instead with knowing eyes.

No matter what damage her father’s dalliance might have done to their marriage, Lady Stark put a gentle hand atop her husband’s and with the soft stroke of her thumb across his knuckles and the weight of her eyes, convinced him to put it aside. Oh, no doubt there would be much discussion on the matter later so he might know what she did, but he trusted her silence guidance on the subject more than all justification that Joanna might have offered.

“All right, Joanna.”

“All right?”

“I’ll see what I can do about getting you a sword master whose skill set will be closer to yours, and until then I’ll be sure Ser Rodrik knows to train you as hard as he would train any squire. You have not only my permission to pursue this path, but my faith as well. I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive in the beginning.”

Joanna all but leapt from the table and crushed her father in a grateful hug. He had never been against her training, but he had never cast his full-throated support behind it either. Like most, he seemed to take her training as a fancy that Joanna would grow out of given enough time. The rest of dinner was consumed with Lady Stark attempting to explain to Arya why she wasn’t allowed to train as Joanna was – she seemed to settle on, ‘when you’re Joanna’s age we can revisit the topic’ – and Robb discussing with their father about knights who might lured from other castles to begin her training. Joanna turned herself to that conversation rather than interfering with Lady Stark. Joanna knew she was quite short in comparison to men, but apparently there were far more considerations to be taken into account when you were trying to train so small a knight, not the least of which was the trainer’s reputation in regards to the treatment of young ladies.

When they all retreated to their rooms after dinner, Joanna changed into her nightdress and then curled up in a chair beneath a thick, woolen blanket with Ghost at her feet. Arya was there first, as she always was, with Bran hard on her heels. Neither understood the entirety of what had happened tonight, both of them having been spared such foul words. They both understood that Joanna had been granted permission to train as a knight as much as she liked, and that was to be celebrated with congratulatory hugs and kisses before they were shooed off to bed.

Sansa was next, nudging aside her sister to curl up beside her in the chair so they might whisper together as they had begun to do after Joanna drew her sword on Ramsey after he got too close the first time. Joanna shuddered to think how terrible their relationship might have been if she had been looking for a husband when Sansa came of age. It was rather difficult to believe Septa Mordane’s lectures about husband-stealing bastards when anyone with eyes could see Joanna didn’t want one.

“Are you sure about this, Joanna? Father will only have to tell one man that you’re not looking before they all assume you don’t want a thing to do with them, and then your chances will be completely gone.”

“I’m all right with that, Sansa.”

“You’re only eighteen.”

“To a pretty young girl like you that must be almost an old maid.”

“Jo.” She scolded. “I don’t want you to regret this later. There’s a whole world of Southron nobles that I’m sure mother could introduce you to, and none of them even know a hint of what happened with King Robert.”

“You think Stannis Baratheon would’ve come all the way North if they didn’t have any clue about what happened down South, Sansa? And even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be right to marry a man without telling him what had happened.”

“You keep saying that it’s your business, not anyone else’s.”

“Personal business doesn’t apply when you’re dealing with the King. If I married a man in the South there’s at least a half a chance that I’d run into King Robert again, and that wouldn’t be fair for my husband to find out the story after Robert tried to grab his wife. Either way, unless your mother is going to introduce me to a man from Dorne, I doubt there’s a man of worth in the Seven Kingdoms who would be content taking Robert Baratheon’s leavings.”

“The women he’s secduced can’t _all_ be left unwed.”

“I don’t know about the common folk who he’s no doubt gotten with child, but the one noblewoman whose maidenhead he took ended up she married one of her father’s household knights, and only because she had the bed sheets to prove she’d been a virgin before he took her.”

“How do you know that?”

“Septa Mordane was very thorough in her lecture on the perils of sleeping with married men.”

Sansa had obviously not gotten that lecture, and Joanna was content to keep from telling that it had been more about how the Florent girl had fallen from lofty – through likely made up for the sake of the story – heights after allowing herself to be so defiled. (Joanna’s own research had proved that the girl was married with two children of her own, and Jo hoped that she might be happy. That perhaps the household knight she’d ended up with had been a favorite of hers, and not just the only man foul enough in her father’s employ to be unable to get a wife for himself.)

“But Lord Harrion and many of the others are good, unmarried men. Maybe they’ve learned form their mistake and would do right by you.”

“And what if Smalljon Umber came and told you he loved you?” Sansa puckered her nose. “He’s a good young man, from a strong family.”

“But he’s…”

“Fat. And plain.” Sansa nodded. “See, we all have things we’re unwilling to settle for. For me, I refuse to lie with a man who ever thought me a whore.”

Robb had never been one much for sneaking, and he arrived just in time to see Sansa out. He sprawled on Joanna’s bed while Grey Wind curled up beside his brother on the floor. Robb laid there in silence for several long minutes before he said, “You know I would never choose a wife who thought ill of you, don’t you?”

Robb was just reckless enough to mean it. Joanna couldn’t see her brother falling in love with a woman who though anything less than the world of his siblings, and he wouldn’t be able to stomach marrying for anything less than the same love his parents had found. (Jo wondered whether Lady Stark would realize that she’d brought on herself all the complications she would have in attempting to marry off her children.)

“And you know that any woman you decided to marry I would make my best friend. If you love her, I’m going to love her.” They were both aware enough that there was a profound difference between love and like. Joanna would be loyal to her brother and do her best by his bride until her dying day. However, that didn’t mean that whatever devout, fragile Southern girl Lady Stark chose for him would be the sort of woman Joanna would have chosen for a friend. But still, Joanna would try, and she’d poke and prod Arya into trying too.

There were times when Joanna missed the childhood between her and Robb, before she’d really understood what a difference it made to be a bastard and a girl, and the only thing that mattered was that Robb called himself her twin. He still considered her such, and Joanna still meant it when she said her life’s ambition was to stay by her brother’s side and guard his back. But there though both of them ignored it, they were beginning to understand that perhaps things might be more complicated than that. That truth lurked unspoken between them, unsettling their plans and reminding them that while Robb had obligations, Joanna had restraints that neither of them could put aside.

If ever they would ever be courageous enough to face the truth, tonight would not be when. Robb rolled out of bed with a grumble about watching her fight being more exhausting than doing it himself. Jo rose to bid him goodnight, sharing a long hug and knowing that if they had still been small children they would have ended up back in the bed, wrapped around one another like their wolves were on the floor.

Despite the late night, Joanna knew what was coming next and so stayed up waiting. Whatever else her father might have been, Lord Stark was certainly dependable. They had long ago established that after any day where Joanna had a confrontation with Lady Stark, her father could be found creeping into Jo’s room long past bedtime. He would have been in earlier, she knew, but Lady Stark would insist on having whatever conversation about Joanna she deemed necessary after her own children were safely seen to their beds. In her younger years Joanna had thought it meant that Lady Stark wanted her to stew in fear about what her father might say, but now she could accept that Lady Stark simply didn’t want her blood children to worry that they were being neglected at bedtime because _they_ had done something wrong. All of them got to be sung a lullaby and kissed goodnight with the belief that all was right in the world, even if they had heard yelling not an hour before. As a woman grown, Joanna could respect Lady Stark’s determination to keep everything right in her children’s worlds. And in truth, the part of her that still longed to be a mother could not fault Lady Stark for the concern she showed her own children, and back when Joanna believed motherhood was a gift she would still have she had intended to show the same care to her own children’s bedtime rituals.

As it was, Lord Stark took so long in arriving on this night that Joanna began to suspect that she was going to be put off until first thing in the morning. But of course, Ned Stark was always a reliable man, and he edged open her door to take a peek and be sure that the light filtering through the crack under the doorway wasn’t just the moon. He saw her awake in her chair, though still he hesitated.

Like the absolute grownup she was, Joanna lifted the edge of her blanket and her Father took the offer. Ned hefted her into his arms as he had done when she was even smaller and settled her legs over his lap, tucking her in close against his broad chest and pulling the blanket tight around them both.

“I’ll ban the whole of the Bolton clan from Winterfell if you’d like.”

“If you banned people for calling me dirty words then Septa Mordane would be the first one you’d have to kick out.”

“Well,” she could hear the smile in his words, “we can’t have that. But I will have words with my Bannerman about the treatment of children.”

“But I’m not a child.”

“You are _my_ child.”

“And just yours. I’ve come to realize that I ought to be grateful for all the consideration that I _have_ been shown as a Lord’s bastard rather than bitter about all I haven’t. I didn’t realize even realize how wonderful my treatment had been until it stopped being so.” Before her father could object that it still ought to be good, he was her _daughter_ after all, Joanna continued. “If anything, it has taught me those who are my true friends and those who aren’t. While your Bannerman’s knights haven’t handled the matter with all the grace you might’ve hoped, their wives have been better than I ever thought they’d be.”

“Were they not always? I’d thought…”

He’d thought that the women of the North had always had a rocky relationship with Lady Stark, though young Lord Stark coming home with a babe in his arms that wasn’t hers had apparently done much to rally them to her side – the support of women with one who had been wronged, and all. But that goodwill didn’t last forever and there were quite a few Northwomen who considered Lady Stark a waste of cold fish blood on two Wolf sons who ought to have had better. Their distaste of Lady Stark meant they were more inclined to be kind to Joanna, just to irritate their Lord’s wife.

Joanna would never make her father utter such words aloud, though. “Some were, but the ones who were kind of me for ulterior motives found those motives outweighed by my getting sullied by a Southron King.”

“Almost as bad as being a Southern yourself in their eyes, I take it?”

“I’ll admit, sometimes I’ve been tempted to ask them about the scale they’re using. I want to know if they think you’re worse for marrying one, or Lady Stark is worse for being one, or I’m worse for being touched by one, but I’ve kept my cheek away from people it might offend.”

“Thank you for that, Jo. I don’t think I’d be able to object properly when they came to me to complain.”

“I’d say that I try my best to keep out of trouble, but it’s more that I try save my trouble for times when it’s worth it, and it’s rarely worth it.”

“I appreciate when the lot of you take turns causing trouble instead of doing it all at once.”

“We do _try_ to budget our mischief, you know.”

“Oh believe me, I’ve walked in on Arya complaining that she can’t pester Ser Rodrik this week because Bran nearly fell from the towers again.” They both giggled at how petulant Arya had sounded at how her brother’s broken leg had been an inconvenience to _her._ Father ran his hand along Jo’s braid, stroking over the wisps of curls that always managed to find their way free no matter how tightly she tried to bind them up. Joanna bit back the urge to ask him if her mother had had curly hair too, if perhaps he’d appreciated it on her the way he did on Joanna.

Instead, she let the silence hold for a long minute before she accepted that they would sit there all night and her father would never speak the words on his mind. “I meant it, father. I won’t say never, because you taught me that the gods will just make you a liar if you claim something will never happen, and if you need me to marry someone for House Stark then I’ll do my duty, but I have no intention to wed.”

“Not even if you run off and squire for some Southron Lord with an honorable son?”

“Are you going to find me one to squire for?”

“Do you want one?” Her poor father sounded as terrified as he did when Sansa had asked for a harp. Joanna bit her lip to keep from laughing at him.

“I had thought to practice as well as I’m able with Ser Rodrik now that I know he’s got more to teach me than he’s been admitting to. Things in the North being what they are, it seems unlikely that I’ll find someone to squire me here, so I thought I thought I might see if Lord Stannis had any recommendations.”

“It can’t hurt to ask, but I suspect if you want to learn from a woman you’re going to have to go all the way to Dorne.”

“Do you think they’d allow me?”

“Allow or not, I’d prefer if you stayed, if not closer to home, at least in some kingdom that doesn’t hate us.”

“The Eyrie, then?”

“Or the Stormlands, but Lord Stannis would be better informed about that. I’ll write Jon Arryn and ask him for his opinion as well. And if Lord Stannis doesn’t know of anyone, perhaps he might be willing to ask Renly, who has better ties with the Reach than any of us.”

“I suppose if the Reach aren’t friends, at least they’re not enemies.”

“I believe that is the best anyone can ever say about their relationship with the Reach. And I’ll write to the Blackfish. He’s my size, but if there’s anyone who might be able to teach you something so far beyond their own capacity, it would be him.”

Joanna snuggled a bit closer, overwhelmed at the support. “Thank you, Father. I know this isn’t what you wanted for me, but thank you.”

He stroked his hand over he wayward curls once again. “I recall having a conversation like this with Benjen.”

“But he’s tall like you.”

“Not for him, for Lyanna.” Joanna slowed her breathing and listened very closely. It was almost impossible to get their father to say a word about his sister, and harder still to get anything from Uncle Benjen. “She longed to be a knight and had told Benjen about all her plans. He tried to talk Brandon and I around, thinking that if all three of his sons presented the argument to him our father that he might let her.”

His words faded away, and Joanna softly asked, “Did his plan work?”

“I didn’t help him. I knew Lya liked the sword, but I thought it was nonsense that she would ever consider anything but being a wife. And then she was dead before I knew how wrong I’d been.”

Joanna leaned back to look her father in the eye. “I won’t die by this, Father. I promise you.”

“Oh, Jo.” He brushed his broad hands gently across her forehead to sweep away her curls. “I wish that was the kind of promise any of us could make.”


	3. Chapter 3

While the entire Small Council had agreed that the eighteenth name day of Stark’s heir was a subtle enough opportunity to send someone to pay their respects to the Warden of the North and determine what Robert had done and how to fix it, Stannis still wished it hadn’t been him. There was no alternative, however. The last time Robert had been without Lord Arryn for more than a few weeks he’d tried to rape Stark’s daughter, the thought of sending Cersei Lannister to treat with anyone was comical, and Renly had sworn up and down that sending the King’s unmarried baby brother to a man with daughters would be its own kind of insult.

So despite having do desire to go, Stannis accepted he was the only option the Crown had. He had expected to spend days attempting to negotiate the price of pardon for Robert while attempting to accomplish whatever small approximation of work he could manage while in another man’s house. But with recompense for Stark and Lady Joanna handled in under an hour, Stannis found himself at looser ends than he anticipated. Lord Commander Mormont had been complaining in letters about the goings on beyond the Wall, and if Stannis had been able to manage it, he would have traveled to the Wall just for the comfort of having something to do.

As it was, his first act after ensuring that the Baratheon family honor – what little of it remained – didn’t require he return to King’s Landing and stab his own brother, Stannis pled exhaustion so he could miss the Stark family dinner without insult. Lady Stark was pinch lipped to the point that Stannis assumed that there had been some sort of frantic scramble since his arrival to prepare a meal, but given that it had been such a small amount of time, Stannis didn’t think those preparations would be too difficult to unwind. He imagined that Lady Stark would be far more put out by having to spend entire meal attempting to converse with him, so in his opinion she ought to be grateful that he’d done her the favor of subjecting her less of his company. (His only other acts of the night were to send a raven to the Wall to enquire if there were any texts in the Winterfell library that Maester Aemon recommended he read while he was there and then eating his dinner alone in his room.)

While Stannis expected to spend his days reading the Maester’s recommendations and ignoring requests that he venture to the Wall since he was so far North already, he did not anticipate stepping out of his room in the morning only to find Joanna Snow already lurking in the hall. “Lady Joanna.”

“Lord Stannis.” She paused in whatever she intended to say and asked the far more polite question. “Were you wanting to attend the family breakfast?”

Bastard or not, Stannis couldn’t imagine one of Stark’s own children being sent to play escort. “Not particularly, no.”

Joanna’s shoulders dropped in relief, as though enduring family breakfast was a greater task than asking Stannis Baratheon anything. “Then would you perhaps be willing to begin my sword instruction this morning?”

“I am anticipating a letter from the Wall today that will demand my attention.”

“Were you intending spending the entire day with the ravens waiting for it?”

“I was not.” Stannis didn’t move in the face of her hopeful smile.

Rather than wilt, Joanna squared her shoulders and pressed on. Though he could see the consideration pass across her face where she chose not to be coy, but honest. “Then I thought you might enjoy sparring with me instead of spending your day with the rest of the household.”

“You do not know me well enough to make suppositions about what I may or may not prefer to do.”

“I’ve heard enough stories.”

“I would imagine that you, of all people, would discount gossip as a replacement for fact.”

“Not as a replacement for, no. Facts are always better than rumor, but rumors tend to have a basis in fact. And though I don’t know you as well as I should like, one day is enough to show me that you are not over fond of people.”

The girl sounded tepid when she said it, as though she was desperately trying not to offend on a subject that Stannis had been aware of and content with since he was five years old. “And what does that matter?”

“Robb’s birthday is in five days.”

“I am aware.”

“Father’s Bannermen have a habit of arriving anywhere from the actual birthday to a whole week before.”

“I’m surprised Lady Stark would allow such imprecision.”

“It irks her, to be sure. But I think that might be why some of them do it.”

“And that is disrespect I’m surprised Lord Stark would allow.”

“The Lords who do it are genial enough that I think Father believes it’s all accidental.”

“And you haven’t told him otherwise?”

“If I could tell him a way that the information might do him any good, I’d have no problem mentioning it.” Stannis raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like he can confront his Bannerman about taking advantage of the hospitality of his house, and I think he’s said all he can say on the matter of treating his wife with respect. If they haven’t heard him by now, they won’t hear him at all. And in the grand scheme of things, at least their impromptu arrivals are a harmless sort of teasing that Lady Stark can prepare for.”

“Your argument is that she can _prepare_ for impromptu arrivals?”

“I know that Arya will either be late or early to breakfast every morning, never on time. It’s different every day, but I can still depend on it.”

“So says argues the woman who has never had to run a household. If you had had to be the one to plan for these unexpected arrivals, trying to organize the food, the rooms, the entertainment, then perhaps it would seem less a harmless sort of teasing and closer to the deliberate and slighting test that it is.”

“You think they’re testing her?”

“I think that the Northerners will be testing Lady Stark again and again until the day she dies looking for any deficiency in her that they can find.”

“Is that…” Joanna trailed off with a blush.

“Ask.”

“No, it was impolite.”

“You want to know if that is how my people treated Selyse.”

“You don’t have to answer.”

“I would have let you ignore the question if I was unwilling to answer it. And no, my people were ambivalent towards Selyse because they were ambivalent towards me.” Joanna’s expression suggested she was of the opinion that it was impossible for _anyone_ to be ambivalent towards Stannis – though she had sense enough to imagine that ambivalence swinging often more towards irritation than pleasure. “Upon becoming King, Robert made me Lord of Dragonstone, a castle I had only seen when I took it from the remaining Targaryen loyalists. With the Lordship came a very few Bannermen, all of whom had been, if not outright supporters, at least quietly loyal to either Prince Rhaegar or the Mad King, or both.”

“Loyalty to the one wasn’t loyalty to the other?”

“Aerys was mad at the end and everyone knew it, even his own son. There were rumors that Rhaegar was planning on forcing his father off the Iron Throne to preserve the peace, though even twenty years later his loyalists refuse to speak about the matter, as though knowing he had the sense to try and stop the Mad King would damage his reputation any further. Have your history lessons been that scant, or is the North so insular you haven’t been taught anything other than the glories of Robert’s Rebellion?”

“I know full well what happened, Lord Stannis, it’s just, Father doesn’t like to talk about the Prince.”

“Ignoring the facts of the situation won’t bring his sister back.”

“There’s a difference between ignorance and picking at old wounds that will never heal, Lord Stannis. This is the latter. Now, I believe we were discussing how the Lords loyal to Dragonstone spent their time testing you. Do they still do so?” Lady Joanna crossed her arms and stared Stannis down.

But Stannis would not let the conversation be put aside simply because it was uncomfortable. “You’re scolding me.”

“I’ve never buried a sibling, Lord Stannis, but I have been told more than once that I share my father’s disposition as well as his looks. I cannot imagine burying Robb. I do not think I would survive it. My father had to do it twice, both times under such circumstances as would give anyone nightmares to hear tell of. And to have my father burned alive while Robb killed himself trying to stop it, sometimes I’m surprised my father managed to get out of bed in the morning, let alone fight a war.”

Stannis would not fathom such agony at the loss of Robert or Renly. At least with Renly he might mourn the sweet child he had been before Storm’s End and the sycophants had gone to his head. But even for all their terrible relationships, the thought of his siblings dying in such a gruesome manner churned his stomach. It was poor enough that he had lost his parents as he had to the sea, burning alive while a child watched was perhaps the only death more gruesome than drowning within sight of home.

“It is said that the Stark siblings always love one another dearly. Baratheons are not inflicted with such a curse.” Joanna opened her mouth, obviously to object to the idea that familial love might be considered anything but one of life’s great blessings. Stannis raised a hand to stop her. “My relationship with my brothers is perhaps nearly as incomprehensible to you as your father’s with his siblings is to me. However, even with our strains such as they are, I would not want them to have met such fates.”

“For all our love, even we do not get along perfectly. But I’ll admit that it is very difficult to continue a fight with one of your siblings when you’re confronted with Father’s sad eyes and the truth that there is little he wouldn’t give for the chance to shout at his siblings once again.”

“I would like to argue that it is easier to idealize dead siblings than to endure the mistakes of living ones, but before I can even manage to speak those words I think about my parents and how I would rather have them alive, scolding me still for all my choices than lost to the sea.”

Quite without provocation, Joanna wound her arm through his, tugging him against her side and pulling him into a walk beside her through the parts of Winterfell that were not yet woken by the morning bustle.

Suddenly, Joanna began to giggle. “Well, that was quite a morose way to begin the day. Tell me about your Targaryen loyalists, unless that will just put us both in an even more melancholy mood.”

“I have been quite reliably informed that I’m always melancholy, so it makes no difference to me. The Lords loyal to Dragonstone tested me vigorously for the first several years I was there.”

“But you’re from the Stormlands and Dragonstone is in the Crownlands, aren’t those close enough not to make much of a difference?”

“I could just as well ask if The North and The Eyrie have no differences between them.”

“Your two kingdoms aren’t separated by The Neck.”

“Not by a physical boundary, but by boundaries of blood. The Crownlands and the area directly surrounding King’s Landing are so different as to constitute two separate kingdoms themselves. If I had been a Crownlander – _not_ ‘from the Capital’, note – that might have smoothed things. As it was, they considered me a foreigner in birth, and despite my Targaryen grandmother, in blood. That my own brother led the rebellion was enough to wash out any blood claim I might have had to Dragonstone and the surrounding islands. Worse still, it was my responsibility to take Dragonstone from Queen Rhaella, and though I wasn’t fast enough to catch her living children, I did take their castle by force. That was an unpardonable sin in many of their eyes.”

“But you said they only tested you for the first few years? Did you finally convince them otherwise or are Southerners really less stubborn than Northern folk?”

“If anything, I would say more stubborn. Your people at least have the sense to put aside grudges to survive the winter, while ours will let them fester for a dozen generations to the detriment of all. No, I imagine they would still be testing and oh so casually undermining me, and would have done the same for Shireen and her children, and her children’s children, were it not for the Greyjoy Rebellion. If there is one thing island folk respect more than they loathe a man’s help in overthrowing a king, it is the ability to command a fleet.”

Joanna laughed outright and they had to stop walking. Stannis was quite proud of the way he had handled the Squids. Goodness knows that none of Robert’s other favorites could have done it, and Stannis had managed it after Tywin Lannister had let his entire fleet be burnt. “Why was that funny?” He tried to demand, but was rather concerned that he might have sounded more hurt than angry.

Joanna didn’t stop laughing. Stannis turned to walk away, but Joanna grabbed him. She was rather more holding on to his arm to stay upright than anything else. “No, no, Lord Stannis! I know you did, which is precisely what father said.”

“Lord Stark discussed it with you?”

There was perhaps something in Stannis’ tone that made Joanna straighten up and her laughs fade away. “When you sent your raven from White Harbor warning that you would be arriving, that’s why father agreed to hear you speak. He said that after what you did in the Greyjoy Rebellion there was no Northman who would deny you entry. You’ve earned The North’s goodwill forever. Such as it is.”

“I had thought your father might be vaguer about the terms of the Rebellion with the Greyjoy boy in your house.”

“He was vague with me, and what he told Robb I don’t know, but the other Bannermen weren’t shy. Especially when Theon used to give me trouble. I was bastard, but I was _their_ bastard, and a Squid had no right to talk to me that way.”

“I am thought well of in the North. I never would have guessed.”

“It’s as you said: we’re rather less concerned with grudges and more concerned with survival. Lord Glover told me once that even with all the ships at White Harbor they wouldn’t have been able to corner the Greyjoys as fast as they did. You destroyed their fleet and that forced them on land long enough for us to take the Pyke. If Balon would’ve had a ship to run off on, he would’ve done it and the Rebellion would’ve dragged on while they tried to hunt him down.”

“You’re feeding me compliments, Lady Joanna.”

“They’re not compliments if they’re true, Lord Stannis.”

“A selective truth, I’m sure.”

“One that you can confirm for yourself if you doubt me. Lord Glover and plenty of other Lords will be arriving any day now for Robb’s birthday.” Joanna froze. “Oh!”

“What?” Stannis tugged her close and looked around for whatever had taken her by surprise.

There was no one there, and when he stepped back she was bright red in embarrassment that, “I forgot I’d been trying to convince you to train me.” If possible her blush got worse. “I was warning you that the other Lords will be arriving at goodness knows when and there will be plenty of people at the yard showing off for one another so we won’t have a chance after they arrive.”

“This presupposes that the training yards are the only place in Winterfell for sparring.”

“That’s the point of them.”

“The point of them, perhaps, but considering your build you’ll want to think about all the ways terrain might play to your advantage.”

 

@@@@@

 

Having secured Lord Stannis’ agreement to train with her – and the likelihood that unless Castle Black possessed the fastest ravens in the Seven Kingdoms he would likely _keep_ helping her train just to avoid dealing with other people – Joanna dashed off to the kitchens to grab something portable for breakfast. Lord Stannis stared at the pasty she offered as though snatching an unexpected breakfast from the kitchens was something that had never before crossed his mind and he didn’t know if it was behavior he ought to be discouraging.

Joann was prepared to explain that snatching breakfast on the run was really quite common among the Stark children – among the three of them who might be termed ‘wild’ more than the others, but still. However, she was not prepared to lead Lord Stannis into the training yard and find Robb out there already, practicing with Theon Greyjoy and half a dozen guardsmen. The party was all genial good mornings until they realized that Lord Stannis was following along behind her, staring down at the pie held in both his hands like he’d never seen such a contraption before. (Joanna desperately wanted to find a way to ask if the lack of meat pies in his life was a Stannis thing or a brother of the king thing, but the glowers on the rest of the men were a more pressing issue.)

“Jo… and Lord Stannis, how wonderful of you to join us.” Someday she was going to point out to Robb that when he grimaced a smile he looked exactly like his mother.

“I thought you’d all still be at breakfast.”

While Joanna had been trying to tell Robb she hadn’t been meaning to make him uncomfortable, Theon, of course, twisted it in the worst way possible. “Why Lady Snow, what were you looking for a little privacy to get up to something?”

“If you don’t know what is supposed to happen on the training grounds by now, Theon, then there’s no hope for you at all.”

“I know _everything_ that happens in the training yards, Lady Snow, want me to show you?” Theon did something with his tongue that Joanna didn’t know the precise meaning of, but had seen enough to know it was meant to be dirty. While Theon’s standard repertoire of jokes at Joanna’s expense tended to revolve around the state of her maidenhood, he generally had more sense than to make such jokes in front of, well, _people_. And he certainly knew better than to proposition Jo after the time he roamed home still drunk and told her all she needed to get that stick out of her ass was a good, hard fuck. Robb had beaten the shit out of him right there on the hallway floor and no one but Lord Stark himself was willing to drag Robb off.

(Father had dragged both boys into his office for an explanation, told Robb to solve his problems with words, then sent him out and proceeded to lecture Theon for what was only ten minutes, but the boy came out of the office pale as a sheet and didn’t regain his color for days. Despite the lecture, Robb had received a suspiciously timed new sword, which to this day Father still claimed was just because it was ready and not at all a reward for defending his sister.)

Robb smacked Theon hard, and more than a few of the household guards grumbled about the comment.

However, whatever scolding Robb might have given was swallowed up in the low voice of Stannis Baratheon. “Tell me, young Stark, does your father prefer to handle such disrespect to members of his family or does he rely upon the people in the situation to handle retribution on his behalf?”

Robb gawped like a fish and not a single man there was going to open their mouths, so Joanna answered. “It depends on the offense, Lord Stannis, and the players, and all sorts of other things.”

He wasn’t going to let any of them talk their way out of giving him an answer. “And in this situation, where a ward of his house, a grown who relies upon Lord Stark’s continued goodwill, chooses to behave like a drunken lecher towards one of Lord Stark’s own daughters, what is your father’s standard response?” All the men in the yard paused, Theon’s teasing given new horror with such blunt words and such an unflinching tone. They all stood in silence, because had Lord Stannis not been there, Joanna would have just rolled her eyes and the lot of them would have moved on, perhaps with Joanna or Robb taking out their frustration on Theon in a match, if the man could be lured into it since he usually avoided training when he knew the twins might be angry with him. But none of them needed much sense at all to know that was the wrong answer.

The silence stretched on too long as they failed to find the right words to speak. Lord Stannis gave them all a sharp nod and murmured, “I see.” Lord Stannis handed Joanna is pie and went for the clasp on his cloak with the same smooth motion he’d employed yesterday before trouncing her.

Robb’s eyebrows went up to his hairline and Theon scrambled back several steps. “What are you doing?”

“Precisely what I would do to any man who propositioned my daughter in such a way.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Don’t worry, young Stark, I’m perfectly capable. I’ve handled plenty of Squid in my life.”

Theon’s face seemed unable to decide between terror and rage, having been so bluntly reminded that he was a Greyjoy squaring off against the Master of Ships for the Seven Kingdoms, a man who had likely killed Theon’s own family members and was half the reason why Theon was standing here inside Winterfell instead of off someplace reaving and raiding. Stannis Baratheon was one of the main reasons why, no matter what tart words he spoke to her, Theon Grey joy would never be allowed to take Joanna Snow as a salt bride, no matter all that some of the ladies had liked to say that Theon’s cruelty to her was just pulling her plaits because he liked the pretty girl, and wouldn’t that be a good match, Lord Stark’s ward and his bastard daughter? But there would be no more of that, because there was a Stannis Baratheon standing in between her and him. There would be no, “I was just teasing, Jo!” this time, and every man there knew it.

Even Robb, who all but shouted, “I’ll tell father.”

Lord Stannis raised an eyebrow, and Joanna hoped to the Gods that Robb wasn’t trying threaten a Lord of the realm. He seemed to realize precisely what he’d sounded like and stumbled out, “About Theon. About what Theon said to Jo. You don’t need to handle it. I’ll tell Father and he’ll handle it.”

The entire yard stood in silence, waiting for Lord Stannis to decide if he believed Robb or not. Through the thick walls Joanna could hear the groan of a castle fully come to morning life. It was only this yard that was waiting on Stannis’ decision with bated breath, and in any moment the rest of the world might come tumbling in and start asking questions.

Lord Stannis let them all hang there. He didn’t seem the needlessly dramatic sort, so Jo couldn’t help but wonder if this was part of how he taught lessons, leaving people to wonder if they were about to be caught on the wrong side of the infamous Baratheon temper.

He dropped his hand from his coat clasp, and the entire yard exhaled. “If you are certain, Young Stark?”

“My word of honor, Lord Baratheon. I’ll tell him about it myself.”

“This morning, of course. For no man would let such a slight to his beloved kin go unanswered for very long.”

“Of course, sir.”

Lord Stannis gave Robb a perfunctory nod, and then waived Joanna back the way they’d come, offering some explanation about the yard seeming particularly crowded this morning and it would be better to conduct their training elsewhere. Lord Stannis tucked Joanna’s arm in the crook of his elbow and tugged her away before any of the guards got themselves back together.

Though, Lord Stannis was forced to stop just around the corner from the training grounds and profess he didn’t know the castle well enough to direct them to some other place to practice. Mindlessly, Joanna led him to the Godswood and it wasn’t until he was taking off his cloak and turning a sour expression to the wooden swords she had grabbed before Theon had distracted her that Joanna’s brain caught up with her body.

“You didn’t need to interfere. Robb would’ve handled it.”

“Young Stark would’ve handled it like the boy he still is, as though his friend had crooned at a serving girl rather than his own sister and a noble lady. If the young Stark keeps handling such offense to you so softly then he will never discourage Theon, let alone make an example of him to discourage others.”

“Theon just says things. He hardly ever means them, not really.”

“No one ever just ‘says things’. Our words have an effect on those around us. It might not be the effect we intend, but it exists nonetheless. To pretend otherwise is the height of foolishness and should not be tolerated in a grown man.”

“He doesn’t really want to… to get up to anything with me. He just knows it makes me uncomfortable.”

“And what honorable behavior that is.” Lord Stannis realized she’d all but collapsed to take a seat upon a rock. “You’re upset.”

“Not quite. I think I’m more in shock than anything.”

“Why?”

“We had a bit of an unspoken arrangement, Theon and I. That I would let these sort of things slide.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s something close to family and there are some things you agree to let go because you’re family.” Lord Stannis looked so terribly disappointed that Joanna felt the need to defend herself further. “Theon teases, it’s what he does!”

The man’s expression hardened. “I am in Winterfell to resolve one of my brother’s drunken mistakes. Are you under the impression that I do not know the extent of family obligation?”

“I know you do, but—”

“As of yesterday you were explicit in your disdain for young men regarding you as Robert’s whore.”

“I do!”

“Unless those young men are Theon Greyjoy? Then apparently they are allowed to speak to you in whatever way they choose. I do not know the Greyjoy boy well, but if I were you I would be cautious in placing my affections on him. He does not strike me as having the capacity for fidelity.”

“I don’t fancy Theon!”

“Then what justification can you possibly offer for the differences between what you professed yesterday and the way you behaved today?”

“Because he’s always been that way! Because Theon made those comments before what happened, and he’s kept making them after! Because he doesn’t care about whether or not King Robert touched me, that’s just the way he speaks to me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a bastard, or because he doesn’t like Robb having friends other than him, or if he’s just decided I’m the only woman in the house he can get away with talking to that way, or maybe he simply doesn’t like me. I don’t know, but that’s the way Theon has always spoken to me and for all he got scolded a thousand times before and it didn’t stop him, it’s not going to stop him now that he’s got cause.”

“So you consider his treatment of you justified then?”

“No, but I accept that I’m not going to be able to stop it.”

“Not with your current method, no.” Lord Stannis tossed her one of the wooden swords.

“Are you suggesting I beat him until he’s polite?”

“Returning his jibes with laughter has failed to stop him, so \ find a different method.”

“Do you do that when you’re fighting with your brother?”

Lord Stannis took a very long, contemplative pause before he shook it off and declared, “No, but it is the method I used when fighting Squids.”


	4. Chapter 4

While Stannis was quite certain that if Lady Joanna had been left to her own devices she would have happily spent the entirety of his time in Winterfell sparring, sore muscles or not, she had responsibilities. They arrived in the form of Lady Arya, who sprang out from behind a tree entirely unnoticed and it was only years with Renly that allowed Stannis to maintain some dignity and not jump. Lady Arya declaring that she had gone through the whole of Winterfell trying to take as long as possible, but now that she’d found them she had to tell Jo that Lady Stark was looking for her.

“Any idea what for?”

“No. I ran to look for you before she could give _me_ an assignment.”

“Well then, I suppose you ought to help Lord Stannis find his way back the training yard so he can put the practice swords away.”

“I was thinking about making sure he knew what to do for lunch.” Arya grinned.

Their shared blood was quite obvious in Joanna’s returned smile. “Do both.” She offered the quickest of goodbyes before abandoning Stannis to her youngest sister’s staring.

Stannis picked up the practice swords – which Lady Arya immediately swept out of his hands to carry herself – and re-fastened his cloak. She stared at him for a long moment, ignoring that the entire reason she was pretending she was there was to escort Stannis back to the Yard. If she wasn’t going to perpetuate Lady Joanna’s rouse then she would be better off helping her mother, and Stannis told her so.

“I think you should show me how to fight, like you did Jo, instead.”

“No.”

“No?” She sounded strangely surprised for a girl who ought to have been accustomed to people refusing her desires to fight.

“No. If your father hasn’t seen fit to teach you then I have no desire to undermine his desires on the subject.”

“But he hasn’t told me no!”

“And he obviously hadn’t told you yes if you feel the need to ask the first person who has the authority to defy him without repercussions. Instead, I will respect his wishes on the subject.”

“But you’re teaching Jo!”

“Lady Joanna is already well versed on the subject of swordplay. I am not teaching her to fight, I am helping her modify a style that she already has in place. I lack the disposition to teach anyone to combat outright and certainly will not learn now under these circumstances.”

“But if you say I’m good father will let me practice more like he’s done with Joanna!”

“You’re a child. No one is good when they’re a child. If you want to learn to fight it would be in your best interests to approach Lady Joanna about the subject and see what manner of training she can offer you without affronting both your parents.”

“Jo has tried. Why do you think she had a spot out here? But we got caught and mother shouted at us.”

“Then you have your answer on the subject already.”

“I don’t know why Joanna said she thought you were kind.” Arya spat.

“I cannot imagine.” And in truth, he couldn’t.

Arya stomped off with all the fury of a wronged little girl and Stannis re-evaluated his decision to remain at Winterfell until young Stark’s birthday celebration. Less than an entire day in their home and already he was mortally offending family members and the petulance and irresponsibility of other members of the household only made him wish for Shireen’s quiet, practical company.

He left the young lady to return the practice swords to the yard, no doubt seizing the opportunity to complain about Stannis with the guards. While Lady Joanna had run off a bit too quickly to scold her for encouraging her sister in abandoning Lady Stark to handle the preparations alone, Stannis had intended to escort young Arya straight back to her mother’s care. Since that was no longer an option, he retreated to the main hall for lunch so he might at least tell the girl’s mother where she had gone.

Lady Stark was not present for lunch, of course, though Lord Stark was seated at the family’s table, examining some paperwork as though he had needed a reprieve from his solar. Upon seeing Stannis enter the hall, Stark stacked his work and moved it to the side, a silent offer for Stannis to sit beside him.

“You didn’t join us for breakfast.”

“I am not a great eater of breakfast at the best of times, but Lady Joanna did fetch me a hand pie in exchange for training.”

Stark rolled his eyes. “I apologize. I gave Joanna my full-throated permission in this pursuit, but that wasn’t permission to distract you from whatever other tasks you might wish to pursue.”

“It is no matter. I had already completed my singular necessary task for the day. Lord Commander Mormont has expressed concerns about the goings on beyond the Wall to both Lord Arryn and I, and I assume to you as well?” Stark nodded. “While I would prefer not delay my return home by traveling all the way to the Wall, especially since the Lord Commander has explained that he has no facts and only inclinations to share, I thought it only right to inquire if there was some information on the subject that might be obtained at Winterfell.”

“I intend to go North to have a proper conversation with the man, but more urgent matters keep appearing and delaying my departure.”

“And it is difficult to place the Lord Commander’s concerns at the top of the list when his only articulable suspicion is that the Wildlings are too quiet.”

“In his defense, the Wildlings are never quiet.”

“A warning strategy that I can accept, but not one I can do anything about. The only action that might be taken on that information is to continue watching and waiting for them to make noise.”

“Benjen says the Night’s Watch has had talk of a ranging beyond the Wall.”

“Unless the Lord Commander is asking me for ships so they might range from the coast, I don’t know why he would write to discuss the matter with me.”

“I imagine it is less a matter of influence at court and more a matter of common sense. If intervention is needed beyond the Wall, you represent one of the few great houses that can be trusted to accept the need and offer aide.”

“Not that Dragonstone has much aide to offer.”

“I confess, Lord Stannis, I would rather have your head for strategy and the few Bannermen of Dragonstone than some of the other Lords with all their armies to answer.”

Stannis raised his glass in silent agreement. Tywin couldn’t be trusted not to stab an ally in the back, and Mace Tyrell was possibly the most useless lump of a man Stannis had ever encountered. Renly might prefer his frills, but at least he had the sense to plan a decent battle.

Lord Stark cleared his throat and said, “You sent Robb to me to complain about Theon.”

High among the things Stannis appreciated about Lord Stark was his preference for putting aside pleasantries and speaking honestly. Another man might have phrased that to Stannis as a question, but Stark didn’t bother wasting their time on what they both knew to be truth.

“I did.”

“Robb was convinced that you were going to beat Theon to death right there in the yard if he didn’t bring him to me himself.”

“I didn’t intend to kill the man, just drag him to you.”

“I assumed so and I told Robb as much, but I don’t think he believed me.”

Stannis did not reply. Stark’s heir apparently considered Stannis the sort to beat an unarmed idiot to death in front of witness, and that opinion did not reflect well on either of them.

“I should warn you,” Stark cleared his throat, “Joanna tends to prefer handing Theon herself. Robb has interrupted before and gotten himself yelled at more than Theon for the offense of thinking she needed his help.”

“She was embarrassed.”

“What?” Stark paused his eating.

“Whether it was purely at what the Greyjoy boy offering to bed her right there in the training yard or that he said it in front of company, I don’t know lady Joanna well enough to say, but she was embarrassed.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t drag him into a fight right then if that was the case.”

“I imagine she did not because she would have had to cut out his tongue to shut him up.”

“She wasn’t angry with you for interfering?”

“Not a single word of complaint.”

“Well then, count yourself a lucky man Lord Stannis, my daughters don’t like many people.”

“It is just the one, Lord Stark. I believe your youngest expressed all the displeasure that Lady Joanna did not.”

“Why would… let me guess, Arya asked for training like Joanna’s?”

“Precisely.”

Stark slouched back in his chair. “I apologize for any offense she gave, Lord Stannis. Arya has always had a bit of the Wolf in her, more even than Jo.”

“No offense was taken. And in truth, I’m not quite sure that offense was even intended. However, it has made me miss the company of my own daughter. According to Lady Joanna you will be set upon by your Bannermen any day now and I regret that my coming North at a time when I supposed my presence would be permitted has likely only caused Lady Stark more stress. It is my intention to leave before young Stark’s name day celebrations so that I might provide your family with some measure of rest before you are set upon.”

“You don’t need to leave on our account, Lord Stannis.”

“You needn’t worry, it is a matter of politeness, not of affront.”

“Still, if you would rather hurry home, I of all people wouldn’t blame you for the urge, but you are not an inconvenience to my household. In truth, I think your presence has been making this week much easier on Jo. For all we’re calling it another name day celebration for Robb, we all know that it’s just a chance for the young ladies of the North to try and capture his eye, and for their brothers to leer after Sansa. Cat has told me about the difficulties young women face when they’re not the sister everyone wants to marry.”

Stannis couldn’t imagine what familiarity the lovely Catelyn Stark could have with such circumstances considering the problem had never applied to her. Even her sister had fallen from grace and still managed to seize for herself one of the great lords of the realm. Likely she had only mentioned the difficulty to her husband to play on his sympathies in a way that would make him seek out Joanna’s marriage prospects so she might be rid of the girl.

“For all that Joanna claims it doesn’t bother her to be shunted even further off to the side than she has been in the first place, I appreciate that your attentions have given her something to call her own.”

That was going too far. “Lady Joanna had her interests long before I arrived.”

“Yes, and sometimes a father needs a disinterested third party to remind them when they’ve been a fool. For all that it seems otherwise, Joanna doesn’t have much of the Wolf blood in her. If I asked her to marry, she would, and would unhappy the rest of her days.”

“Few of us are as blessed as you have been Lord Stark, with wives who have learned to love us.”

“But knowing, as you do, what it feels like, would you allow Shireen to marry in the same circumstances as you did?”

The thought of Shireen spending the rest of her days with a man who regarded her the same way as her mother had turned Stannis’ stomach. “Sometimes circumstances outmaneuver us all, but I would not prefer it.”

“Robert did not learn from his own marriage and so condemned his brother to a marriage of unhappy alliance. I tell you now in confidence, Lyanna begged me to speak with our father to break her engagement to Robert, and I didn’t listen. She didn’t wish to endure Robert’s wandering eye. I ignored her wishes and it got her killed. I would rather my daughters be Wolves than corpses, Lord Stannis. I had thought I’d learned my lesson about listening to the women in my life and I am quite ashamed to discover that for all I had thought I’d heard Joanna about what she wanted, I’d missed the truth entirely. If you cannot bear to stay, I will understand, but I confess that I would rather you did. You are known for speaking only the truth, and your opinion about Joanna’s skills means a great deal to her.”

“You needn’t keep pressing, Lord Stark. Shireen would be disappointed in me if I left another young lady without support only so I might return home to her.”

Stark paused, then simply took another bite of his meal. “Daughters are such confusing creatures.”

Stannis snorted out a laugh, but didn’t disagree.


	5. Chapter 5

Lady Stark kept Joanna busy for the rest of the day, not so much helping arrange matters as checking up on others’ work in the effort to make everything ready in case every Bannerman rode into sight. Lord Stannis’ opinion had made Joanna more sympathetic to Lady Stark’s plight than she had been the last time this happened, so instead of doing the barest minimum of what she was asked and then retreating back to her own business each time, Joanna returned to Lady Stark and asked what else she might do to help. Joanna certainly wasn’t trusted with anything of particular importance, but perhaps her contributions were enough to lessen the load. Since this was not how Joanna would have spent her day given the choice, each time she hoped that things would be finished but the Lady always managed to find something else. Joanna wasn’t sure if Lady Stark truly needed all of these details handled today or if the woman was waiting to see how far Joanna’s good behavior extended.

Joanna was pleased by her helpfulness when Lord Manderly arrived just after breakfast the next morning. Apparently Manderly’s own horse had thrown a shoe and none of the party wanted to risk the animal by riding in full dark, otherwise they would’ve arrived last night after dinner when half the household was already in bed. He’d related this to them over a hastily provided meal – the basics of which Joanna had seen ready for preparation on a moment’s notice yesterday – and Joanna flinched at the pointed eyebrow Lord Stannis raised towards her. She’d done her best to help the situation yesterday, and today there was either nothing more to be done or Lady Stark wouldn’t let Joanna be caught as the one doing any of it, for which Joanna was in no small part grateful.

After paying the most perfunctory respects while Lord Manderly and his party ate their late breakfast, Joanna left the hall. She already had quickly eaten her meal and it would be neither insult nor honor to have her stay. Lord Stannis was much longer getting free – apparently men with ships had much to discuss – and he found her lurking in the back of the glass houses. She was tucked away among the flowers on a bench beside the winter roses. It was not until she glanced up from her book and caught sight of Lord Stannis, who must have been standing there in silence trying to decide if it was polite to interrupt.

“Why aren’t you testing your newfound skill in the training yard? I went there first and all of Lord Manderly’s men were out with your father’s, sparring and shouting at one another as though they oughtn’t be resting after several days travel.”

“You just answered your own question.”

“I thought Lord Manderly was on your list of Bannermen who don’t treat you poorly.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that they’re not really sparring, it’s men’s conversation. Either I get in the way and they’re irritated with me for keeping them from sharing their stories, or they act as though I’m not there and I end up wishing I wasn’t. I’m not insulted by it. They act the same way when Robb comes out, or father.”

“So tomorrow will be when you join them in the yard?” Lord Stannis sounded a bit stiff, and if Joanna hadn’t completely taken leave of her senses there was perhaps a chance that Lord Stannis didn’t like the idea that he might be cast aside for a troop of guardsmen.

“I had intended continue practicing with you, but if you would prefer I seek someone else out then… in truth I’ll likely wait for you to grow irritated with the company again before I try and lure you back to sparring with me.”

“I am perfectly capable of engaging with other people, you know.” Thankfully Lord Stannis did not sound offended.

“I know. It wasn’t an expectation that you would dislike them, but a hope that you might continue to find my company preferable, even if I suspect that you only do because it gives you something to do when politeness demands that you cannot yet return home.”

“I enjoy your company because you are sensible, Joanna Snow. You have talent with a blade, which I will admit is always better spent than trying to teach those who should let others do their fighting, despite the supposed dishonor in relying upon those with the capacity to be more competent at a task. Better still, you have enough sense that discussion with you would be enjoyable.” Stannis paused and Joanna must have had some expression she didn’t intend on her face because the man continued, “However, I will admit that such a topic and task certainly makes things easier.”

Joanna could feel the heat on her cheeks and rose before the man could notice. This time she led them deeper into the Godswood far off the usual path that lead to the heart tree. For all that Lord Stannis seemed unconcerned with the silence, Joanna spent the first few minutes of their walk trying to come up with something practical to say so she wouldn’t squander his newly discovered good opinion. He seemed so unaware of Joanna’s discomposure that she forced herself to put it aside and rely upon the peace of the moment rather than a scramble to find something worth saying. Such a state was easier once they reached the peace of the Godswood and for several long minutes it felt as though she was walking with family.

When they reached the small copse Joanna used when she wanted to be with no one but herself, Lord Stannis waived her to the center of the clearing while he went through the now familiar motions of untying his cloak and casting the fabric over a tree branch. He bid her draw her sword and then crouched back on his heels and examined her. His gaze was heavy, but there was no hint of lechery to it, as there was when the most loyal of her father’s men looked at her a bit too long. Joanna had heard more than a few women declare that they weren’t surprised she was beautiful. After all, her mother had been comely enough to tempt Lord Stark. Which meant that every time their husbands got caught looking it was her fault for having a seductress for a mother.

However, Lord Stannis’ look wasn’t fatherly or brotherly either. Instead, he looked at her like a solider.

Joanna tried not to examine the man in return, certain that she would not maintain his same detachment. She had grown accustomed to sparring young men not yet grown into their full width while Lord Stannis… was grown. The man was lean and almost rangy in the way of Uncle Benjen. He had, despite his history, a rather bookish air, and until he actually swung the sword in his hand Joanna had thought it would be easy to excuse the man as all for show. But now that she’d seen him fight – not even properly since it was just against her – she knew better. It was a lesson that had been reinforced when he’d bundled her against him yesterday when he thought they were about to be set upon by something.

He was also exquisitely tall with a few inches on father, who thus far had been the tallest man she had ever seen. But that was neither here nor there.

Lord Stannis reached out with his sword and tapped the flat of the blade against the outside of her boot. “You keep your dagger there.” Joanna understood the question and leaned over to draw it and tossed it to the dirt before him. He plucked it up and gave it a quick examination before declaring with some surprise, “This is a proper shoe dagger.”

“The first day I decided to wear one I just stuffed a regular dagger into the side of my shoe and it cut at me before breakfast. Father had this made that afternoon.”

“You’ll want another for the other side, and a third for your belt. You don’t want to always have to be bending over to get your dagger. The motion is too obvious and puts you in a vulnerable position for too long.”

“Do I want daggers at all if they’re that much trouble?”

With a flick of his wrist Stannis plucked a dagger from his own boot. “Practice drawing them and you’ll find yourself reaching for your closest weapon. You’d be surprised how often your feet are in range when you’re in a fight. For other circumstances, I know a few women who carry small knives in their hair and others who have them in their bodices.” He paused. “I’m afraid any specifics of the matter are beyond me.”

“Lady Mormont will know.”

“And will she speak to you about it?”

“The folk of Bear Island have no time for nonsense, and the thought that I would bed my father’s best friend is certainly nonsense.”

Stannis pauses for a moment and then rather pointedly looking at the dagger in his head instead of at Joanna’s face he asked, “May I ask precisely what happened with Robert?”

Joanna swallowed. “Did my father not tell you?”

“Lord Stark spared me the particular details. He said only that Robert was drunk when he set upon you, that you fought him off, and that Lord Robb heard your cries for help before Robert could recover himself and attempt a second time.”

Joanna had not been asked directly what had happened with King Robert since Arya had snuck into her room the night after and asked what had happened to make father so angry. Even now Joanna was overcome with the same desire to lie, to protect Lord Stannis from the truth of his brother. Though, if there was anyone in the world who would be prepared for the truth of it, it would be Stannis Baratheon, witness and negotiator for all his brother’s misdeeds.

“He _was_ drunk, but he was a problem before that. King Robert was at Winterfell for days before he touched me and all that time I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”

“Were you the only one who noticed?” Lord Stannis kept his eyes on the dirt before him and Joanna swallowed back the bile that he felt the need to question her story. Here she had assumed that the man believed her protestations of innocence and now he needed them corroborated.

“No. Robb did, so did Sansa after a day or so of it. Lady Stark and some of the other women all did the first night. I don’t know what they had to say on the subject, but Lady Stark at least could tell I was uncomfortable and didn’t accuse me of trying to seduce a married man like my mother had.”

“You have more sense then that.”

Joanna’s head snapped up from watching his hands, and Lord Stannis looked her in the eye. “What?”

“You have more sense than to bed a married man at all, and certainly more than to try and seduce him in front of so many witnesses.”

“You’re defending my virtue by claiming not that I’m virtuous but that too smart to have been dissolute under such circumstances?”

“I have met no small number of the women Robert has gotten with child. They were not chosen for their intelligence. That is a trait I assume is common amongst all the women he beds.”

Joanna didn’t know whether to be complimented or insulted, and she told Lord Stannis so.

“Experience has taught me that anyone’s honor might be compromised in the right set of circumstances. It is a compliment that I believe you would only sacrifice yours under a very specific set that would never involve Robert.”

Joanna would argue with him that some principles were never to be betrayed, but that she sat there breathing was proof enough that even the most honorable of men might be otherwise.

“I already had instructions to stay away from King Robert since a bastard child shouldn’t be around royalty, but when Lady Stark noticed how much attention he was paying me, she gave me explicit instructions to stay away, or to at least never be alone with him so no one could accuse me of anything untoward when I could shame my father with his dearest friend.”

“So she was less concerned with your wellbeing than how it might be perceived?”

“My wellbeing is not her concern, but the state of her husband’s honor _is_. More than honor, I think this whole affair has broken my father’s heart. The only thing worse than your child being set upon by your oldest and dearest friend would be that friend getting your child with one of her own.”

“Unless that grandchild was created by force.”

“If King Robert had forced his way inside me, Father would’ve killed him.”

Stannis snorted. “That’s precisely the same thing your father said about Robb.”

“Robb doesn’t carry a sword with his sleep clothes.”

“What?”

“Robb was so uncomfortable with the way King Robert was looking at me that he was coming to check on me before bed. He actually snuck Ghost and Grey Wind into the castle to have them comfort me. I found out later he was plotting to have them stay with me the entire rest of King Robert’s time at Winterfell, no matter how Lady Stark hates it when we have them in the house.”

“Is that why I have yet to see the infamous Stark direwolves?”

“They’re fully-grown now, so they spend most of their time outside Winterfell’s walls taking care of themselves. They would stay if we asked, but they prefer freedom to the kennels.”

“They are Direwolves,” Stannis shrugged.

“They our ours, and they wouldn’t attack without just cause.”

“I believe you.” And Joanna truly believed he did. “So, Robert was paying you too much attention, enough that your family had rallied to keep him from doing anything untoward.”

“I don’t believe any of them thought he would actually touch me. They were just concerned that his attentions would start rumors.” In truth, Joanna wasn’t quite sure if Lady Stark didn’t like King Robert’s attentions because it would damage House Stark’s reputation for Joanna to be thought loose, or if she didn’t like the thought of there being whispers that Joanna’s beauty had captured a king. However, Joanna had yet to voice that doubt to anyone, and wasn’t going to start now.

“Hence why you didn’t have any sort of guard on your door.”

“That wouldn’t have happened anyway, Father is the one who places guards.”

“Did Lord Stark not notice Robert’s fixation?”

“Old Nan says Father has never noticed attentions, not even when he was the one being paid them.”

“Lady Stark didn’t tell him?”

“His oldest and best friend in the world, as I said.”

“You were all trying to spare your father the truth of what was going on in his own house?”

“None of us thought he would act on it!”

“And how did Lord Stark feel about that secrecy when Robert tried to rape you?”

It took her until that particular question to realize that Lord Stannis was asking all these questions not to verify her tale, but as a concerned friend. He was hunting out precisely what had happened to Joanna with all the same fervor Robb had shown, but more analysis and less brotherly rage. Joanna stepped back and sat at the base of a tree. “Father was horrified.”

“Have you told him the entire truth since?”

“The short version of it, yes.”

“Why only short?”

“Because no father wants to hear of how his daughter feels when a drunk man is leering at her breasts.” Joanna raised an eyebrow and dared Lord Stannis to pretend otherwise and though it looked like it irritated him to admit, he didn’t object.

“So you didn’t like the way Robert looked at you.” She didn’t laugh at Lord Stannis’ discomfort.

“Before then all it was was looking. But on that night in particular he had been getting so obvious that Lady Stark actually intervened and suggested that King Robert might like to have a dinner just with Father and some of the other knights, telling stories that weren’t fit for ladies and children. He listened to her but got drunk. So drunk that directly after dinner Robb went to fetch the wolves for me.”

“I presume that despite his best efforts, young Robb wasn’t fast enough?”

“When he apologized later he said that sneaking our Wolves into the castle after his mother had given such explicit instructions about keeping them far away from King Robert was more difficult than he’d anticipated. It was worth it though, because his human ears never heard the screaming, but Ghost and Grey Wind did and they came running.”

For the first time in the conversation, Lord Stannis rose from his crouch. He hesitated for a moment, and then took a spot on the ground beside Joanna. His eyes and his hands remained in his lap, however. “May I know the specifics of what Robert did?”

“You’re the one who keeps interrupting me with questions.” Stannis’ expression didn’t change and Joanna accepted that he was attempting to be both a friend and a member of the Small Council. He had a dozen questions lurking behind his eyes and it was a fit of restraint to keep himself from demanding answers.

Joanna drew a deep breath and explained, “At this time I didn’t sleep in the family wing.” Lord Stannis locked his jaw to keep from calling that idiocy, which Joanna appreciated. “I did when I was a child and I’ve moved back since, but at this time I was a flowered maiden with a family history of licentious behavior and Lady Stark thought it best I was away from the young Lord.” His jaw clenched tighter. “I like to think that actually being in the same hall as my family would have stopped King Robert, or someone at least would have seen him coming, but as it was, King Robert made his way into my hall instead of the Guest House without anyone raising any sort of alarm or asking any questions.”

“In my experience the presence of White Cloaks tends to do away with questions.”

Joanna nodded, for that’s what the servants had all cried when Lord Stark had gone through every person who’d seen anything and demanded to know why no one had interceded.

“For a drunk man, King Robert was surprisingly quiet. I was already abed when he came knocking and there was no stumbling or crashing outside my door, not even his knock seemed sloppy enough to give me pause. Until the moment I opened the door I thought it was just a servant coming to deliver a late night message.” Lord Stannis didn’t press, and Joanna took a moment to shove the image out of her mind, the rush of horror that she’d felt when the hulking frame of Robert Baratheon had been standing there looming down at her, crowding her against the doorway of a room a world away from the only people in the world she could trust to interceded.

Joanna fought to keep her voice level, like it was nothing more than telling a story. “He didn’t really ‘set upon me’ so much as he just… fell forward.”

His kisses had been damp and sloppy, half slobber and half wine. It was the vinegar of too much alcohol that Joanna still remembered best. Robert was so fat that it had taken her a moment to understand that the fumbling grip he was trying to get on her was to drag her close enough to make contact with his thrusting hips. But that smell, that sharp, foul smell had shocked her into the truth of what was happening and Joanna screamed. She tried to punch him in the swollen face that was nuzzling against hers, too drunk to land a proper kiss. That just put her fragile wrist close enough that even in such a state Robert could find it. He seized her in a bruising grip and put his other hand to her head, forcing fingers through the tight roots of her braid and all but yanking on her hair to drag her against his face while he murmured, “No Lya, it’s me, I killed him, you’re safe now.”

Joanna screamed against his lips and tried to worm her free hand between their faces so she could scratch at his eyes. It did her no good since she couldn’t make it past his bulk, so Joanna just shoved against his chest. Robert mistook it for affection and wrenched the hand out of her braid – Joanna screamed again at the pain, disoriented enough that she didn’t move when Robert released her entirely and dragged her against his chest, hefting her into his arms and hauling her over to the bed while he slurred words of love and safety despite taking her away from the comforting light of the door. “I found you, Lya. I found you in time. You’re mine now. I’ll make you forget that bastard dragon.”

Crushed against the man’s chest like Rickon and his stuffed toys, there was nothing Lya could do to be rid of him but scream. He stumbled over his own feet and nearly crushed her under his bulk when he landed atop the bed. She took gasping breaths to force air back into her lungs and came back to feel Robert running fat fingers against her face. She snapped at them. He snatched her face in his grip and squeezed so hard her jaw ached. “It’s me, Lya! I saved you!”  He heaved his bulk off her just enough to reach for his belt and the light coming through the scant gap between his thighs gave Joanna her chance. It was the only time where she could properly get to his bollocks and ripping her nightgown with the force of it, she slammed her knee up with all the force Ser Rodrick had told her never ever to hold back.

Under other circumstances Joanna might have laughed at Robert’s face, the way he squealed like a pig. But Joanna had no time to appreciate the pain she’d caused. She tucked up her knees to force the collapsing Robert to the bed beside her instead of on top of her. The moment he landed Joanna flung herself out of bed and grabbed the first useful thing she could lay her hands on: an unlit candlestick. She twisted around with the iron raised like a sword to beat him back, but Robert was still on the bed, moaning about Lyanna Stark.

Joanna left him in his pathetic puddle and ran for the open door, all but crashing into Ghost as he was on his way in. Ghost had abandoned his brother and Jo’s to handle the Kingsguard lurking outside the door – Joanna would vomit later when she realized that two knights of the realm had been watching King Robert try and rape her, let alone what else they might have watched unperturbed. Ser Boros was left less bloody since he had the sense to put up a perfunctory fight before he got out of Robb’s way, while Ser Greenfield found himself on the wrong end of a Direwolf’s teeth. Both stopped when they realized Joanna was loose.

Robb bundled Jo up in his arms and nearly took the candlestick from her hands to go in and beat the king to death himself, but what it seemed Joanna’s screams had not done, the sight of a two Direwolves and the future Lord of Winterfell sprinting through the castle had managed, and other help arrived.

“Robb likely would’ve attacked the Kingsguard, but I’m afraid he was rather too occupied with hugging me. Father arrived at a run and I had only a few moments to tell him what happened before King Robert found his way back to his feet and came stumbling out of my room. Things moved fairly quickly after that and Father threw him and the Kingsguard out before King Robert was even sober.” Lord Stannis had sat silently through the entire tale, not one word of interruption and never prodding her along when she couldn’t help but explain the horrible details in all their detail.

“I am sure it means nothing, but I am sorry for my brother’s behavior.”

“Have you grown accustomed to apologizing for him?”

“No. I almost never do.”

“Then why today?”

“Because he did you so great a wrong that even I, who consider myself quite immune to thinking well of Robert under any circumstances, thought that perhaps you had lied about his treatment.”

“So you’ve been asking me what happened to prove to yourself I wasn’t lying to you?”

Joanna bit down hard on her tone to keep the hurt from entering her voice. Lord Stannis just blinked at her in confusion, as though they were speaking at cross purposes. “No. I knew by the end of out first conversation that you hadn’t lied.”

“Then what are you apologizing for?”

“That there was ever a time when I believed Robert might have been more honorable than you.”

“You didn’t know me.”

“I don’t need to know Lord Stark’s children to assume that barring some unfortunate turn of events that they would be more honorable than most Baratheons.”

“Thank you.”

Lord Stannis just shrugged and stood up to actually begin their training for the day, as though his easy certainty in her was a simple matter and not a rare experience that came only from her family and those few women who had faced their own challenges on that score. As though he didn’t understand that hearing it from a Lord of the realm and King Robert’s own brother wasn’t enough to give her the chills.


	6. Chapter 6

There was an unwritten rule so well known that it may as well have been etched upon the front door of every great house declaring the value of unmarried daughters. While Robert had sullied the honor of far more women then he’d managed to get with child, any man less than a King would have to choose their dalliances carefully. Rhaegar Targaryen was a perfect example that even a prince could overreach and get himself killed for slighting the wrong girl. (Slighting, of course, being an understatement for what Lyanna Stark had endured.)

While Stannis could justify staying out of the Stark’s way before the masses of Bannermen descended upon Winterfell, he was rapidly approaching the point where his time with Joanna was going to be considered a slight to Lady Stark and her trueborn daughters that would not be forgiven. He had hoped that the sporadic arrival of Stark’s Bannermen would successfully distract the Lady from where he spent his time, but it seemed the brother with honorable intentions was the one Lady Stark felt the need to closely observe, while the lecherous one was allowed roam about unmolested.

Had Stannis known the true conversation being had between Lord and Lady Stark behind closed doors, he would have been mortified. That very morning Lady Stark had endured whispers about Lord Stannis’ attentions to Lady Joanna. The gossip, as it was relayed to Catelyn, was not that their time together was merely a matter of training, but instead long walks in one another’s company before the rest of the castle rose in the morning, and visits together to the Godswood. There was no way of knowing if Joanna’s reputation would be further ruined for entertaining the interests of a Southerner or if the tales about the King’s brother’s attention would make Joanna the most eligible maiden in the North. After all these years Lady Still couldn’t quite tell what would offend or entice Northmen.

But this Lady Stark did know, If Stannis Baratheon was going to pay attention to anyone at Winterfell, it should be Sansa. Catelyn’s daughter was already woefully unengaged since anyone available in the South assumed she would go to Prince Joffrey, and there was simply no one worthy of Sansa’s charms in the North. Even the vaguest attentions of Stannis Baratheon would open Sansa up to marriage prospects since the other nobles would take Lord Stannis’ interests as proof that she was set upon a shelf waiting for his nephew.

Catelyn had long been waiting for someone to decide Joanna was worth the risk of marriage since the Stark blood outweighed all her dishonor – after all, Lysa had fallen and Jon Arryn had still married her. She had assumed that someone would find their courage sooner or later and Joanna would accept them, only now Catelyn was forced to confront the reality that when Joanna said she would go unmarried, she meant it. Which meant two daughters of marriageable age in the Stark family, and despite Sansa’s beauty, honor, and talents outstripping Joanna’s like the sun outstripped the moon, they both remained on the board. It was Joanna, rough and tumble Joanna, that Lord Stannis was paying attention to. This could not go on.

As Lord Stannis was well aware, he either needed to pay Joanna Snow less attention or Sansa Stark more to keep from causing harm. (Though the entire breadth of that harm no man, no matter how good a father, would ever be able to truly comprehend.) So instead of joining Joanna in the Godswood as they had all the other mornings since his arrival, Lord Stannis retreated to the Winterfell library with the contents of a raven from Castle Black. To Lord Stark the Lord Commander had shared their plans for a great ranging beyond the Wall to determine what the Wildlings were up to that had them so quiet, while Stannis had a list from Maester Aemon recommending historical works from the library that might provide him a bit more insight into their worries. Stannis had a difficult time forcing himself to read about dead man roaming about the North, but it was less torturous than enduring polite political games.

Of course, Lady Stark seized the opportunity of his solitude and before Stannis had properly engrossed himself in a single book she arrived to enquire if she could have a servant bring him anything.

“No thank you, Lady Stark. I am quite well.” Stannis kept his eyes on the book so the conversation might end, but instead Lady Stark stood across the table from him and in the mournful tone Stannis had come to know all too well, she said, “I have not yet taken the opportunity to offer my condolences on the passing of your wife, Lord Stannis. Let me do so now.”

Stannis gave the same reply he always did. “Thank you for your concern.” Usually his blunt ness was enough to keep anyone from asking more questions about how he and Shireen were recovering, questions which anyone with sense must know would be answered that they were as fine as they had been before since Selyse had been at best an apathetic wife and mother to them both. Despite being the truth, people often did not like to hear the dead spoken of so poorly.

Lady Stark, though, had not lived so long in the North without learning some courage. “I confess, I cannot imagine what would drive me away from my own children if they should ever have the misfortune to be in such a state. I must compliment you on the resolution you showed in guarding young Lady Shireen. It is the mark of an exemplary father.”

Selyse Florent – four years after taking the Baratheon name she had still been a Florent in her heart – had behaved precisely as any person of sense would do when confronted with a child touched by Greyscale. She, and the entirety of Dragonstone, had fled to Driftmark. The fearless Marya Seaworth and beloved Maester Cressen were the only two who remained with Stannis and his only child as they tried everything that could be imported from across the Narrow Sea to cure his child.

Davos and the Seaworth boys had all wanted to stay with the remaining inhabitants of Dragonstone, but Marya had sent them off to man the fleet and to use Davos’ less savory connections to chase down any whisper of a rumor that might help the little lady. If worse came to worse one of the Seaworth parents needed to remain alive for their boys, and Marya declared Davos of more use.

(When Stannis had tried to send Marya away too, she had put her fists on her hips and said, “Stannis Baratheon, are you going to put your hands on a woman? Because that girl needs someone to mother her and picking me up and throwing me out of here is the only way you’re going to make me go.” She’d stormed past him back to Shireen, and Stannis had wisely left it at that.)

In a twist of what Stannis considered chance, while they sat in vigil at Dragonstone and Davos ran their ships ragged hunting for cures, Selyse and the entire household that had taken refuge at Driftmark were caught by a fever. It had been pointed out to Stannis several times that the illness did not make it so far as the Velaryon seat of High Tide several miles to the south, and somehow the fever only ravaged its way through the people of Dragonstone who had been granted safe housing at the empty castle of Driftmark. The Velaryon servants who still managed the upkeep of the castle and facilitated all the new guests had not even a sniffle. Stannis believed it was an illness born of people frantically relocating to a damp, old castle that disagreed with them, while more devoted followers of the Seven considered it the divine punishment.

Lady Stark seemed the sort of woman to think that so many had fallen to the flu because of The Mother’s displeasure with Selyse for leaving her child behind to die and her Lord and husband to fall to the same curse. But whatever might have been Stannis’ relationship with his wife in her life, death had been her sentence for abandoning Shireen. Stannis had no desire to listen to her spoken ill of, even now.

“I do not fault Selyse for retreating to Driftmark. Nor have I punished a single individual who fled the castle to spare themselves the horrors that might have come from the Greyscale.” Every single one of those people had refused to remain at Dragonstone because they considered it cursed, but that was neither here nor there. Stannis _still_ hadn’t thrown them out. There was no room in his tone for any more compliments. It was clear that any kindness to him on this subject he would take as an insult to Selyse.

Lady Stark took the rebuke with perfect grace and left Stannis to his book with a sharp nod. Were she to invite him to join the family for their meal, as she had been intending to do when this conversation began, there was no small possibility that Lord Stannis would refuse, claiming that the conversation made him desire to go visit his own child. The insult of Stannis Baratheon leaving before Robb’s party would be severe, but Catelyn couldn’t blame him for the desire since even twenty years later she would not tolerate any words against Brandon. Lord Stannis’ marriage had not been happy, but even if her marriage to Ned had continued on the same rough ground where it had begun she would tolerate no such conversation.

Stannis didn’t know why he was surprised when Joanna appeared at his side later that day, pinch-lipped and uncomfortable. He set down his quill and looked her in the eye as he asked what particular justification Lady Stark had given when she warned Joanna away from him.

“What?”

“My detractors usually seem divided between either a belief that I speak too well of Selyse after her abandonment of Shireen, or that I speak too poorly of the dead, who ought to be respected. Which was Lady Stark’s opinion?”

Joanna delicately said, “Lady Stark simply reminded me that you still have business to attend to and I shouldn’t take up so much of your time.”

“Considering that I have told you so quite bluntly when I have matters to attend to, that would not be causing you pause. So what is it?”

“Lady Umber was also in the library when you were talking to Lady Stark.” Joanna rushed out.

“Ah.” Stannis dropped his quill. “And her report?”

“That you were quite blunt with Lady Stark.”

“And the Northerners are allowed to be blunt with her, but not an interfering Southerner?”

“It is not quite so simple as that.”

“Then feel free to explain it to me.” Joanna did not deserve his temper, and he was doing nothing but proving them right by venting his spleen at her. But despite the temper in his tone, Joanna didn’t flinch.

“Everyone knew you were blunt in the first place. It was merely a reminder of your natural state of being, even when the Lady of the house was trying to pay you a compliment.”

Stannis snorted. “There is no such thing as a compliment when people are discussing Selyse.”

“If Lady Umber was eavesdropping correctly, the compliment had nothing to do with Lady Selyse and everything to do with you remaining with Lady Shireen.”

“That I remained with her instead of leaving and failing the Seven?”

“We don’t care about the Seven in the North. We care about loyalty.” Stannis made a noise unbefitting a Lord of the realm and in that moment Joanna could not have looked more like her father. “We are the children of the First Men. We clung to our gods when the Andals brought the Seven across the sea and converted the rest of the continent. House Stark has ruled in the North for a thousand years and our Bannermen have kept the faith and answered the call for each of those thousand years, for every war and every winter. We do not prize wrath, we do not prize pride, and we not prize vengeance. We are the North, and the North remembers. You risked your life for love and loyalty to your child, and the North honors that. Accept the compliment, Lord Stannis.”

It was remarkable how proud and how shamed Joanna Snow could manage to make him feel at the same time. Stannis swallowed the urge to object that she could not mean it and instead nodded his gratitude.

Accepting his scolding did not silence Stannis’ tongue for long, however. “So the North will forgive my bluntness only in regards to Shireen?”

Joanna rolled her eyes. “We are more likely to understand it in regards to your child, but the North isn’t a monolith. It’s the same as anywhere that if you’re blunt the wrong person you’re liable to offend.”

“But I have yet to offend you. At least, not for more than a moment.”

“That’s because I appreciate your bluntness.”

“I find that very difficult to believe.”

“No matter what else I might be, Lord Stannis, I’m still a Lord’s daughter. I have heard my share of complimentary nonsense from people who say one thing about my beauty or my honor only to turn around and speak precisely the opposite when it serves them. I’ve learned not to trust a single word that comes out of anyone’s mouth. While the words that come from you might be difficult in their honesty, they’re still honest. You don’t say something unless you mean it. So when you say that you think I’m a talented swordswoman with the potential for greatness, I know you’re not simply spreading nonsense to make father think well of you. When you call me Lady Joanna, you’re not being polite for politeness sake. In truth, I don’t think you’re capable of it.”

“Have they always been so disingenuous or have things gotten worse since Robert?”

It was another aspect of Stannis’ bluntness, that he was willing to ask her that question when so many others would have just assumed. “Yes. It’s an impressive dance for those who speak so kindly to me when Robb and Father can hear, but turn around and call me a whore when they’re out of range. I didn’t think there was a word that could hurt worse than bastard, but whore cuts surprisingly deep.”

“They should know better. You’re too clever for such whoring.”

“This is why I appreciate your bluntness, Stannis Baratheon. Because you meant every word you just said, and they’re worth the painful ones that came first.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me about how I see Joanna, so I put [Here](http://sunryder.tumblr.com/post/178588518654/a-snow-and-a-stag-chapter-1-sunryder-game-of) a character sheet I've been sitting on because I'm shy.


	7. Chapter 7

Apparently a reminder of Stannis’ bluntness was enough to keep the Bannermen and their families away from Stannis for the remainder of his time in Winterfell. There are few things that make time in another person’s house so enjoyable as being left to your own devices. While this journey North would have been one of Stannis’ better jaunts merely because of Joanna keeping him busy, it was improved even more by the lack of conversation. (And for all that Stannis doubted in the presence of dead men roaming around beyond the Wall, Shireen would appreciate the story.)

However, all that privacy must come to end, and it met its death at Robb Stark’s nameday feast. As protocol required, Stannis was forced to join the family at the high table – though at least he was not placed too close to Lady Sansa for all that might imply. Despite a shouting match that had led Robb to join Joanna and Stannis in the Godswood to stew, Joanna was placed down amongst the rabble. She was joined there by her Uncle Benjen, which was some form of kindness instead of her eating outside with the dogs, which is what Cersei had threatened the last time Edric had gone with Renly to King’s Landing.

The feast itself was unobjectionable. Stannis was placed near the children, and while he was not good at it, he had practice enough discussing matters with children the age of Lady Arya and Lord Bran. Their questions kept Stannis from mulling on his own nameday celebration, as he was wont to do in circumstances such as these. He’d endured a grand feast at King’s Landing, full of rich food and enough wine to make Stannis hate every second of it. Even all that time later it had been difficult to enjoy excess after what he’d endured in Storm’s End. He had met Selyse at his name day celebration when half in his cups Robert had told him that she would be his wife, no matter what Stannis might say on the matter. They would spend the next four years attempting Shireen. The brothers caught on either side of her never lived long enough to be babes, let alone have their name days.

While Stannis was prone to melancholy, it was difficult to maintain such an emotion when confronted with the relentless questions of two small Starks. They bounced back and forth between the swordplay he’d been teaching Joanna, to what the Stormlands were like, to if there really was magic in Dragonstone, to what their father was like when he was younger (not at all accepting that Stannis had only known their father in passing). While he tended to prefer silent dinners, they were active enough to keep Stannis’ attention on them until such time as the main course had been out long enough that the Northmen assumed permission to start dancing. Lady Arya had explained in her most disgusted voice – with the dancing, not with Stannis – that the everyone else got to keep eating their dinner while silly people wasted time on dancing. (She considered it an offense to pudding that anyone might choose to prance about instead of eat. Stannis nodded his agreement and Arya puffed up with pride.)

Despite the general consensus amongst Stannis’ end of the table, he did notice that while Young Robb made the polite rounds – obviously having been well-schooled in the order of dancing requests to make it quite clear he had no favorites – and Lady Sansa never sat down after she accepted her first partner, Joanna was never asked.

Stannis trusted Joanna when she said that the Northmen had taken her supposed liaison with Robert poorly and he had noticed the way they gave her a wide berth over the last few days. However, he had assumed their behavior was due more to him than any objection to her.

And yet, there she sat, unapproached.

The Northern disapproval of her must have been quite as drastic as claimed if even at Robb Stark’s own feast they were unwilling to cater to the young Lord’s will and pay respects to his sister. After Young Robb had completed the initial rounds of dances demanded by politeness he shrugged off his mother’s hand and actually made it all the way to Joanna before she dragged him into the chair beside before he asked her to dance. She played off his anger with a smile, but Stannis was surprised by the reckless risk the guests took to offend the young Lord, for a boy who loved his sister so dearly would never forget such a slight paid to her.

If Stannis was not schooled in the silent repression of fury, he wouldn’t have been able to tell that Joanna was hurt every time a young man stepped right past her and to another girl of far less breeding and beauty. Not even the married men who kept themselves to dancing with married women and young girls of unmarriageable age were willing to extend her the courtesy, even though such an offer wouldn’t show any inclination of their affection other than to appease the name day boy.

One of the Mormont girls stopped by to flirt with Benjen and speak with Joanna, her reputation secure since was her mother’s heir, no matter how upset the other Lords might be at her friendliness. Lady Glover and Lady Mormont both paid their own attentions, but they had business to see to and couldn’t keep her company for long.

It was all reckless offense to a Lord Paramount’s daughter, a future Lord Paramount’s most beloved sister. The insult was irritating Arya and Bran enough that they were discussing either stabbing the next person to avoid Joanna or asking her to dance themselves (Stannis wasn’t quite sure which child was in favor of stabbing and which was in favor of dancing). Either way, it was height of stupidity and Stannis Baratheon could not abide stupidity.

When Stannis stood from his place at the high table, no small amount of people paused. He hadn’t moved from his place since the feasting began, and he assumed that those paying attention supposed that he had finished his meal and was retreating to the solitude of his room, preferable to the risk of being set upon by Northerners when they’d had too much to drink.

Strangely enough, it was that thought that resolved Stannis’ mind. He had stood with the inclination but the drunk and jubilant Northerners reminded him of what Joanna said about the smell of too much alcohol upon Robert. And now she was surrounded by a room full of the smell and of people who considered who considered her a whore for it.

Stannis was a man grown, the father of a child, and an unwilling but skilled participant in the game of thrones, so he did not flinch when all conversation in the roomed died off as he stepped not right from the high table to the door, but left towards the rest of the room’s population. He ignored their eyes and went straight for Joanna, who stared at him as though he had broken into a smile and begun dancing a jig because nothing in the world could be more surprising than Stannis Baratheon standing before a young lady with his hand extended. But stare she did, and so Stannis was forced to actually say aloud, “May I have a dance, Lady Joanna?”

(For all he hadn’t intended to participate, Stannis had been paying attention and so he knew he had followed the proper Northern form of address. And apparently, the Northmen don’t bother with more Southern rules of etiquette. Instead of first asking a lady’s closest relative for permission they went straight to the girl. Though, they all seemed to look at the girl’s father before asking, a silent check for permission rather than an outright verbal one. However, Stannis did not bother checking with Benjen Stark who seemed to be considered in charge of Joanna for the duration of the feast. Not because he was a Lord in his own right, but because he was a man and if he was going to ask a woman to dance he was not going to be afraid of her relatives while he did it.)

It took Joanna a long moment – not of revulsion, but of bafflement, before she reached out and took his hand. The moment their skin touched, Joanna looked up at him with a smile. That smile remained through the silence as he led her to the floor. She bit her lip to hold back the giggles when, after a beat of standing there to nothing but the room’s echoing silence, Stannis had to turn to face the conductor, raising his eyebrow in reminder that the man had business to attend to. The conductor jumped and started waving his arms about. Only a few of the instruments started playing. By the time they had completed their first turn all the musicians were back on board, and the dance floor was only slightly less full than it had been before.

Joanna leaned in just a hair to murmur with a smile that she was out of practice.

“Excellent. I’m not a very good dancer so perhaps they’ll blame your clumsiness on me.”

“Wouldn’t you rather they blame your dancing on me?”

“That is too much like a lie for my taste.”

Stannis could see the questions writ all over Joanna’s face, the desire to drag him out to their spot in the Godswood and interrogate him about why he was doing this. But that expression was laced with too much gratitude to ruin the moment. Crass though the notion was, everyone knew that Stannis Baratheon would never touch one of his brother’s women, let alone dance with one. Despite all the rumors and their treatment of her, there was no better indication in the world of the status of Joanna Snow’s maidenhood than Stannis Baratheon’s faith that she had been untouched by Robert.

Instead of wasting a question on if Stannis knew what he was doing – of course he did, he may hate political games, but Stannis understood them – Joanna put aside all the hefty things she wished she could ask and instead put on the coquettish little smile Stannis had seen on Lady Sansa’s face when she particularly liked the company of a suitor and told Stannis he was better at dancing than he admitted to.

He simply raised his eyebrow at her expression and waited until the false grin gave way to the laughter of her real one. “As luck would have it, this is one of the simpler dances.”

“Do you not like dancing because you’re bad at it, or are you ‘bad’ because you don’t like it?”

“It’s frivolous.”

“Of course it is.” Joanna laughed.

“It is! Dancing is a limited skill for which the benefits are small compared to the effort required.”

“It didn’t help you secure Lady Selyse?” Joanna asked the question without any guile, so Stannis answered it as though a mention of dead wife wasn’t a sharp reminder that he shouldn’t be out on the dance floor, no matter his good intentions.

“I am a king’s brother and no amount of dancing will suddenly make me charming. I have nothing to gain from dancing that I don’t possess already or that wouldn’t be dashed the moment I open my mouth. Furthermore, I wouldn’t want a wife who was distracted by any ability I might have to dance.”

Joanna smiled, like she couldn’t hear the rebuke in his tone. And perhaps she couldn’t, since it was all directed at himself. “I’m not being funny.”

“I know. I appreciate that you don’t care for dancing and aren’t willing to pretend. But still, Lord Stannis, as useless as dancing is under normal circumstances, in these you have managed to give it a purpose. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell you thank you enough.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“I’d say I don’t care that you’ve managed to change all their opinions of me with one step, but that would be a lie. Though in truth, I care more that you believed in me enough to bother than I do about the outcome.”

The gratitude was genuine and made Stannis so uncomfortable that he grumbled out a, “Yes, well…” and all but sighed in gratitude of his own that the dance was over. Stannis gave her a short little bow, accepted her deep curtsy and led her back to her Uncle Benjen. The moment Stannis stepped away, a young man popped up almost out of nowhere – before Stannis had even managed to turn – and asked Joanna to dance, pausing just long enough to do that little check with Benjen rather than looking Joanna in the eye. Stannis decided he was quite done with dealing with people for the evening, so when Joanna looked to him, he offered her a polite nod, his decent deed done, and turned on his heel to leave them all to their foolishness.


	8. Chapter 8

Osha from the kitchen was a saint and that was the only word for it. Without her sending up a servant to wake Joanna at the crack of dawn she wouldn’t have known that Lord Stannis was already up and preparing his horse for departure. There was only so much a woman could do after a night of revelry to make herself presentable, though Joanna had never been quite so grateful for how orderly she kept her rooms as she dragged on a dress that required no second pair of hands and the smallest amount of fussing possible before she was out the door. The fuzzy, bed-bedraggled braids would give away that she was not as prepared to face the say as she would like, but at least she wouldn’t be stumbling down to say her goodbyes half hungover and in her nightdress like so many of the other inhabitants of Winterfell would be when they finally made it out of bed this morning.

She stopped her run right before she reached the stables, slowing down her breathing to look as though it hadn’t been a mad dash to find the man before he left and this entire week was relegated to the realm of impossible dream. The sprinting had been entirely worth it though, because the man was already saddling his horse and looked moments away from mounting up. “Lord Stannis! You’re leaving already?”

Lord Stannis jerked at the sudden noise and twisted around to face her like Bran caught sneaking biscuits. “On my first day I informed Lord and Lady Stark that I would be leaving immediately after young Robb’s name day feast.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t leave last night then.”

“I prefer to travel during the daylight.” Lord Stannis sounded severe and like he had not understood her joke at all and went straight back to preparations.

“I’m sure that they would be more than willing to serve you breakfast if you decided to stay at least that long.”

“I have no doubt of their continued hospitality but the further I travel today, the sooner I will be at White Harbor and able to sail home.”

“You’re returning straight to Dragonstone, then?”

“Unfortunately I must go to King’s Landing first and make my report.”

Joanna probably ought to have bid him a safe and speedy journey and thanked him for the effort he had displayed in coming to see her at all, but quite against her better judgment she asked, “So you truly did intend to leave without at least saying goodbye?”

Lord Stannis paused half a moment but did not look up from his work. “You all seemed otherwise occupied last night.”

If Joanna didn’t know better, she would say that Lord Stannis was irritated with her for dancing. But it was Lord Stannis’ fault that Joanna had people to dance with at all. While the man was usually blunt to the point of insult, when he chose to be aloof she couldn’t make sense of him. Instead of the politeness she might have otherwise employed, Joanna stepped forward and held out a letter.

That actually managed to make the man stop. Though he didn’t take the paper, he just stared at it as though he was being tricked. “What is this?”

“It’s a letter for Lady Shireen. I’m grateful I saw you this morning, even if you had no intention of saying goodbye. I would prefer to have your permission to write to Lady Shireen instead of sending it by messenger and hoping for the best.”

Lord Stannis gently plucked the envelope from her fingers. “For Shireen?”

“It’s not much of a letter since I don’t know her well, but after everything you’ve told me of her during the last week, I think we would make good friends. And it seems like she and I both could use them.” His hand was still outstretched with the letter gripped between his fingertips. “If you don’t want me to write her—” Joanna reached out to take the letter back and like a snake Lord Stannis snatched it away and tucked it under his jerkin.

“I believe she will appreciate it.” He sharply cleared his throat. “Though I request that you do not speak too much to Shireen about last night’s suitors. I don’t want her head being filled with courtship nonsense at this age. She already reads far too many romances.”

“I’ll keep any romantic discussions to those of the literary variety since I won’t have anything to discuss with her on my own part.” Stannis paused. “I don’t care how many dances they ask of me, I won’t have any of them.”

Lord Stannis finally looked her in the eye. “Why not? I was under the impression that their approval is what you wanted.”

“Their belief will certainly make things easier for me and my family, but I can’t imagine an apology true enough to outweigh all those years of misjudgment. And what kind of marriage would that be, knowing that my husband had once thought me a whore?”

“You said they didn’t all speak to you that way.”

“Who needs words when actions speak so loudly?”

Stannis gave her a sharp nod. It was as though a door had been reopened and suddenly she was standing before the same man who had been keeping her company all week instead of the stranger she’d had to endure in the cold light of morning. “If you intend to pursue your swordplay beyond whatever sword master Lord Stark eventually finds to tutor you, then I recommend that you seek out Lady Brienne. She is a knight sworn to my brother Renly, so I imagine any letter that you send to Storm’s End will find her eventually. Or,” he hesitated, “Renly is a fairly reliable in replying to ravens when they come from Shireen and she would be able to discover where he and Lady Brienne are at any given time.” Joanna could hear his silent request that she keep writing his child, that this not be a singular occurrence that would only lead to disappointment. She also understood the apology lurking in the edge of his recommendation and took both that and the request with a smile.

“That sounds like a marvelous plan, Lord Stannis. When I’m ready for such training I’ll be sure to ask her about making contact, that is, if Lady Shireen hasn’t mentioned it already in her letters.”

Unless everything she had heard of the Lady Shireen had been entirely mistaken and the girl was more like Prince Joffrey than anyone had heard tell of, Joanna couldn’t imagine circumstances in which she would want to cease writing the girl. Even though Lord Stannis was blunt about her circumstances, Joanna knew there were other things lurking in the edge of his report and she thought it could only be to the girl’s advantage so have friends. No matter what, Joanna intended to introduce Sansa into their correspondence, and if the girl proved sturdy enough, with Arya as well. Lord Stannis accepted the implied promise with an invitation that Joanna walk him to Winterfell’s gate.

As they went, Lord Stannis explained the route he would take to reduce the eleven days it normally took to ride from Winterfell to White Harbor, and how Ser Davos would navigate them home quickly. With any luck he would be at King’s Landing only one tide and then be back on the water to Dragonstone and Shireen. Despite the dullness of the words and her own exhaustion, Joanna managed to pay attention, there being something about Lord Stannis’ voice that could not be ignored.

The moment he cleared the gate, Lord Stannis mounted up and offered a bare nod of the head from the back of his horse instead of a courtly bow. “I thank you for your company over this last week, Lady Joanna. You have greatly improved the experience.”

Joanna gave him a low curtsy. “And thank you, Lord Stannis. Your advice has been invaluable and your presence a pleasure.” He snorted and Joanna just raised an eyebrow in refusal to let him deny the compliment. Lord Stannis rolled his eyes, but said nothing. No gratitude, but no refusal either, so Joanna counted it as success. He sat upon his steed for only a moment before offering no goodbyes, no wishes for her health, and no thought for the Lord and Lady whose house he was leaving. He gave a slow nod and then with a flick of his reins, rode off into the pale light of early dawn. He did not turn and look over his shoulder, and Joanna stayed there until he was out of sight to make sure.

Joanna returned to her room with length in her stride and shed her dress for a sturdy pair of trousers and a thin shirt underneath the boiled armor she easily donned before going to the yard. There had to be someone awake that she could spar with, and if not, she wasn’t above dragging Robb out of bed. She had things to learn if the next time they met she want to win again Stannis Baratheon.


End file.
